What could be done to increase the number of active contributors to the projects?

• Readers who have never contributed believe that they have nothing to contribute. But that's because they think contribution = writing articles. We can tap eager volunteers for all kinds of tasks, like copy-editing, peer reviewing, or even just flagging interesting news articles. There should be a banner at the top of Wikipedia at all times that says "We want you! Let us show you how you can contribute." And then take them to a Wizard that asks them their interests and skills. And don't just take people to articles where they can start writing. Someone may read a lot of news, and they'd be a great researcher. Someone may just have time to make comments on articles, so show them some articles they could peer review. Randomran 19:40, 23 November 2009 (UTC)
• It turns out that many many people still don't know they can edit. They click through from a Google search, they see the title of the article, they scroll down to find the info they want, and they never see the little tabs on top. Seriously. I got told by someone just a couple days ago that they only found out they could edit cause their professor said so. Before that they thought maybe there was some committee or something that handled the content. So, putting something on the content pages that is visible and conveys the message simply that "you can edit, just click this button" would get people past that hurdle. -- ArielGlenn 01:13, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
• Find a way to convert one-time contributors into long-term contributors. Wikipedia may not be a social network but user interactions work just like any other social interaction: most people stick around because they feel invited and welcome to do so, because someone else has taken an interest in them. How can we make that happen for anon editors? -- ArielGlenn 01:17, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
• If we put some competition per year like (translation Rally By translatewiki.net)then this can increase the number of editors and also the number of articles ..सरोज कुमार ढकाल 06:30, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
• Why cant we develop wiki sites as the social networking sites(I mean add up some features) ..I know this would not be digestible for the geeks.. we can ensure that the people will spend time on it .. and also marking the user contribution ..like Karma in Launchpad सरोज कुमार ढकाल 06:30, 24 November 2009 (UTC)
• 1) I think Randomran and ArielGlenn are right. Many people don't realize how easy it is to make updates, or that there are many other ways they can contribute. Periodically placing a special message at the top of each article, similar to what is currently being done for the fund raising effort, could be used to catch peoples' attention, and to point them to the edit tab or other ways to contribute. 2) I also suspect a lot of people are intimidated by the HTML tags that are used for formatting. If there was a way to include raw text without any HTML tags, I think more people would be inclined to contribute. Formatting could be left to others. There are probably a lot of Wikipedians that like to do nothing but format information We need to be cautious though: we need to balance the desire to recruit new contributors with the need for well-sourced contributions. Too many articles are already full of unsourced claims that cannot be easily substantiated. We should favor quality over quantity. MissionInn.Jim 14:48, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

note: I moved this content to LQT; I did not create it.

When people contribute, they are neither welcomed nor thanked. The majority of contributors, in my view, who have any interaction with the community, have a negative one, simply because they do not know nor even care to learn all the intricate rules. The rule proliferation has become extreme, and there is no advocate for the casual editor. The only thing they encounter are the police.

Maybe a community like tab attached to the article as discussed here would help to create an environment where contributors are enabled to encourage and support each other. Also encourageing moderators to give more possitive feedback to contributors could help.

Ok .. so you make a good point ... what do you propose ... having a bot adding welcome messages is something that we do.. Making sure that the text is welcoming and not too long is another, having people willing to baby sit newbies is yet another ... working on the rules .. remember they are typical compromises ... Again, what do YOU propose ??

"...having people willing to baby sit newbies "

I will tell you something that I propose and that is always trying to be helpful, non-aggressive, and mannerable to others. I once left a wiki area because these things did not exist. I was new then and knew only a little about some rules yet I had created many articles and cited my sources. Sometime I came back and with an alias instead of my real name. I encountered a polite administrator who didn't act like a poster's cop looking for anything done wrong. His name is Billingshurst. He helped instead of condeming so quickly. He took that time and helped me and he used excellent manners and I stayed. Since then I have posted many articles on Wikipedia, uploaded images on Wiki Commons, and I have placed several books on WikiSource. He assisted me when I needed him amd always with excellent manners. He and his methods made the difference to me. Had he been without good manners and especially ill mannered I would have quit permanently. There are a few administrators that like to think to highly of themselves even though they themselves might do quality work on articles. Billingshurst is high quality all the way. Believe me, good manners make a world of difference. Brother Officer 07:35, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

They do. Good manners, a willingness to help is what we should encourage and promote... Having positive stories helps to slowly move things in a more positive direction because in the end it is a mind set. Thanks,

If there is a bot posting welcoming messages, then it's broken. Having people "willing" to babysit newbies, is not the same as having an obvious way that a newbie can ask for assistance especially against perceived abuse. I already suggested we add to the sidebar something like "Report Abuse" or "Help! Help!" or whatever. Trying to teach newbies how to get to AN/I is a non-starter imho.

Wjhonson,

I think this should be reworded because "babysit a newbie" might appear offensive to any ADULT who is new and wandering around. I note your link connects to your busine$$ where you can make more money. I was told this is not allowed. Maybe I am wrong? If it is okay then many people could place their personal business ads like yours on each part of each system like wikipedia, here, and all other sections connected to or related to wikipedia. That would be a lot of ads for your personal busine$$--Bowman 23:09, 30 November 2009 (UTC)

See my main research website at Countyhistorian.com I am a professional genealogist and freelance biographer. I have been doing genealogy as my sole profession, since 2004, but was doing it as a hobby for 30 years prior to that. I am available for hire. If you would like to hire me, you can email me at wjhonson@aol.com

For now, I have no issue with links to peoples' employement, even if it's self-employment. If it gets out of hand, we'll reconsider. We've got real decisions to make here, let's not let the cosmetic things get in the way, okay?

One simple way to make it clearer that you can edit a page is to make the edit button bigger and to change its color.

More importantly, if you're going to be making any sorts of changes with these goals in my mind, you need to have a framework where you can experiment with changes like this and experiment to see if they actually work.

Something we've been discussing at the Quality Task Force and at Community Health Task Force is the need to stop editors from leaving and how to regain those who left. Making Wikipedia more easy to edit is of course crucial to attracting new editors, but if we keep burning through the ones we have, this will not be enough. --Piotrus 01:19, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Bulls Eye!!! and it is very rare for me to use more than one exclamation point :0)

There are exceptions in some experiences. This is not the situation on WikiSource with Billingshurst who is helpful and has excellent manners. He is the best administrator I have encountered and read about over the years on wiki areas. Brother Officer 07:48, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

During September 2009 7700 new contributors came to English Wikipedia, but 8900 left it. We are far away from the question how to attract new users to become contributors; we are in the middle of the crisis related to how to attract old contributors to stay. --Millosh 12:12, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

According to that fact, we should think more about how to make Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects as places where people like to stay. --Millosh 12:12, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

I would suggest the next: --Millosh 12:12, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

1. Imposing rules related to abusing powers and playing the system from the side of the users at positions (administrators and so on). --Millosh 12:12, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
2. Globalize community and rules. The vast majority of rules are not related to the particular culture, but to the goals of Wikimedia projects. --Millosh 12:12, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
3. Make a control body (probably, WMF body), which would be checking validity, efficiency and possible consequences of projects rules. --Millosh 12:12, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
4. Stricter insisting on civility and good behavior toward newcomers. Treat incivility and bad behavior toward newcomers as abusing rights. (Consequently, such person can't be admin.) --Millosh 12:12, 26 November 2009 (UTC)
5. Split rights into pieces. A contributor who is abusing deletion nomination shouldn't be able to nominate article for deletion anymore (or for some time, at least). And so on. --Millosh 12:12, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

As I was reviewing some of the reasons why people were posting threads at WR (the site which may not be named...), I noticed a few cases where admins had called contributors really nasty names. Not your typical nastiness but over-the-top nastiness. They were reported, and not desysopped. I find that disturbing. Would there be support for a "Ten Words that will get you auto-de-sysopped" list ? Like the F-bomb for instance.