Task force/Community Health/Weekly Report 04
Task Force Name:Community Health
Report of Activities
During this week, we:
Group report: Group discussed and set time for a meeting to do a status check.
Individual reports:
- I've been keeping up with contributions and conversations of colleagues and following the great majority of edits appearing on recent changes to keep abreast of everything. On Wednesday 25 November I went out to the Village Pump (or equivalent) of all the English projects on a fact finding mission to see what, if any, contests they run to improve content (as part of the editor awards and rewards theme). I also asked them if their project had anything akin to en:wp's "WikiProjects" to see if they have viable sub-communities that could be fostered as part of the social features theme. I have written some preliminary findings on our TF talk page. I shall write them up properly next week if and when I get more responses. This inspired me to follow up with some further questions at those venues asking them how they view their own community health, what frustrations they may have in their community that lead to editors retiring and other things. I intend to keep up a dialogue and I'll keep reporting back to the TF. --Bodnotbod 17:00, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
- I added images from Ortega's study. I reinforced a lot of findings on growth trends. I found some fantastic data on user lifecycles, including new users and core users. I also found some data on an interesting trend in participation. This should help us make firmer conclusions about community growth. Randomran 04:35, 27 November 2009 (UTC)
- I shared my knowledge about the collaborative projects and recognition/rewards that are used on English Wikipedia, Wikisource, Wikiquote, & Commons, and encouraged other members of the task force to look for more examples. I'm taking notes on some studies for use in the fact section of our recommendations. Acted as a general resource for information about tools available to analysis editor contributions and articles history. Welcomed and invited community members that showed an interest our task force to continue to participate. FloNight 10:01, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
- The article Task_force/Enhance_community_health_and_culture_task_force/Making_Wikipedia_a_Happier_Community is written and open as a discussion document. I have also been looking at the mini-edit/policy/article-tinkering culture in depth and am seeing that there are a number of articles which are gradually degrading in quality over time more than they are improving, frequently as a consequence of what appear oftimes to be random incursions by individuals; I have made my findings in this respect apparent over at the quality group.Sjc 22:22, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Planned activities for next week
Please be specific and aggressive. It is okay to roll activities from week to week if necessary.
Group report:
- Group meeting scheduled for Thursday at 22:00 UTC.
Individual reports:
- I shall take part in group activities as defined above, keep up with recent changes and keep in close contact with this TF... but I am also quite keen to just keep talking to editors. The last couple of weeks have shown me that I'm not a very good "data guy" and there are people on this TF much better than me at that kind of work. So my plan for next week is to scout around, looking for and then talking to our most dedicated contributors on all the projects to see what I can learn from them. I will also do some more "refactoring" work if I find a subject that both makes a good article AND is relevant to this TF. --Bodnotbod 17:07, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
- Next week is going to be busy for me. But I'm going to try to do one last look at quantitative data on Wikipedia. I'm also going to try and find some outside research on dispute resolution to see if it can explain how to settle big disputes with lots of different people. I'm also going to try to make it to the meeting. But this week is going to be nuts. Send me a million emails and reminders and I'll at least try to stop by. Randomran 15:17, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
- I'm off to Serbia Dec. 5, and this week is crunch time to prepare for that trip, so there's not much I can do until after Dec. 14 (when I get back). As I mentioned elsewhere, I don't have access to academic journals, so I can't look up any of the research I talked about re: AOL communities, USENET communities, etc., which I think would provide a lot of insight and possible approaches to addressing current Wikimedia community issues. I might be able to find a list of such articles between now and Christmas, but I wouldn't be able to retrieve them. Any university students or professors out there with access? Jcravens42 15:40, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
- I plan to continue to review/take notes from academic studies for facts to support the task force recommendations. I plan to make a list some possible facts about measures of Community health, and ways to motive contributors. FloNight 17:45, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
- I am fairly researched out, so I am going to step aside partially and do some creative thinking based around the things I have discovered, focussed primarily on ways for the middle-ground to be recovered from users at the polarities who seem busier than ever before in WP.Sjc 22:25, 30 November 2009 (UTC)
Resources needed
To complete our work, this task force needs the following resources or assistance: Carried over from last report:
- Philippe said he would contact Dr. Pikorski to release some informational interviews to the task force.
- We need to survey former users to answer why users (new and veteran) leave.
Appreciation
This week, this task force wishes to recognize for their assistance the following users:
Other comments
i am doing a course for editors on wiki educators. I is a very good idea of giving newbies a course in editing and policy. The course is free for anyone who promises to make contributions. JaapB 12:06, 30 November 2009 (UTC)We should do it here anyway
References
Our notes or documentation can be found at:
Submitted by: FloNight 17:46, 30 November 2009 (UTC)