Conversion hurdle race
WYSIWYG seems to me like it would mainly affect the 21% "need someone to show how" class, and even then it would only partly address that group since there's much more to contributing effectively than just markup and non-editors realize that, often acutely.
This data actually makes me more skeptical of the potential of pure usability enhancement to broaden the editing pool, and makes me think that the biggest potential is in something like Proposal:Add game-like features: a system for introducing new users to the way that Wikipedia works and the useful things they can do without leaving them to fend for themselves in an endless sea of thankless tasks or take their chances in the article-writing area without foreknowledge of what is expected.
That proposal is partly inspired by the music discovery site thesixtyone, which has a great quest system for introducing newbies to all the neat stuff that you can do on the site. But there is also a fair amount of literature on games as teaching systems; well-designed video games give players a series of tasks of increasing difficulty and gives them a chance to apply what they've learned in earlier tasks to completing each new task. (This short paper summarizes some of the main ideas, which I think could be highly applicable to Wikipedia.)
Sage, its a good idea to recapitulate the proposals. Should we try to create a system to organize all the ideas related to readers conversion, according to the topics mentioned in the survey?
- Proposals that help explain what to contribute? (topic areas that need help)
- Proposals that help explain why to contribute? (how would people benefit from their work)
- Proposals that help explain when to contribute? (people with little time to contribute)
- Proposals that help explain how to contribute? (someone to show how to)
I like TSB's recap here.
- Topic areas that need help: there have been many ways to improve this manually, starting with red links to portals to cafés. In fact, you need specialist educators to guide new writers in certain specialist fields. People who have a broad knowledge of the field and can say: oke, we're missing information there, there and there. Portals and cafés all depend on some leading figures to maintain them; too many slip away after the first spark of inspiration.
- If you can explain what, you can also explain why. On nl:wikipedia we have an experiment to expand knowledge about Surinamese Marrons. We do have lots of professionalism at our side. The 'why' is no problem; the 'what' needs personal advice.
- This shows, that the 'how' is more important than the 'when'. For instance: teach them to read what four books, and if they don't have time, to read two books to begin with. If they have read the two books, they will find time to read the next two books as well.
- My recap is teaching and guidance. A small part can be done by the system; most of it comes from experienced users who guide and teach the less experienced. - Art Unbound 20:28, 22 November 2009 (UTC)
I would add another category: Proposals that make it more fun to contribute. Becoming an editor is often not about knowing why and how and what to contribute but about finding the experience rewarding.
I've started sorting proposals that are relevant to this task force:
Please dive in and add proposals that you find relevant. I suggest we limit it to concrete proposals that are relatively well-developed, rather than vague ones that amount to merely statements of goals or identification of problems. Feel free to move things around in terms of impact assessments, or add comments about why a particular proposal is over- or under-rated for impact. We don't have too much time before our recommendations are due.
As a college student studied intracultural communications. I've learned a lot about the attempts made by companies to diversify their workforce. Read up on this subject! I can't it stress enough! Get a critical socially (they are the ones who want to get a diverse work force) book on intercultural communications, and read the section on intracultural communications in the work place. There is so much helpful information you could learn and apply to helping reader conversion in Wikipedia.
Wikipedia's style of writing inhibits other cultures from contributing there knowledge. Wikipedia demands a uniform way of communication. We set standards on Grammar, being concise, and many other important things. These standards, though necessary, discourage other cultures from writing on Wikipedia.
I'm not really sure how you want to change the "writing style" of wikipedia. For different cultures there are different languages...though this may not be the most pertinent way to look at it.
I agree with you. And I don't think we can attract people from other cultures to work with us very easily. Coca-cola has spent millions of dollars in an attempt to get a culturally diverse work place and they failed. And most of the culturally diverse workers they attracted quit.
Imagine how much harder it would be for a project where nobody is getting paid for their cooperation. When you're dealing with volunteers, you have very little leverage to change their behavior.
Or for them to change our behavior. :) But you make a great point! we have very little leverage, It will be extremely hard to get intercultural collaboration on wiki media projects etc...Cozzycovers 06:14, 21 January 2010 (UTC)