Conversion hurdle race
Conversion hurdle race
I decided to read again the results of the Wikipedia Survey (2008) in order to create a diagram that could help us better understand some of its data related to readers’ conversion. The position of each information on the diagram is based/inspired on the methodology of another survey previously conducted with German wikipedians.
According to the results of the 2008 Survey, 49% of the readers are “happy just to read” the content of Wikipedia. I called them “audiance” and decided not to focus any effort to convert them for the moment.
In order to convert the other half, the Wikimedia community should provide “specific topic areas that need help”, according to 42% of the respondents. It was the most requested “incentive” to help them to convert from just readers to contributors. Therafter I positioned this information on the top of the diagram. Some sort of assistance “to show them how to” contribute was also requested by 21% of the respondents and I positioned this information on the bottom of the diagram.
But even with the above described incentives, there will still exist two major "barriers" on the way to convert them. First, more than half of the respondents (52%) “think they don’t have enough info to contribute” and second “they don’t have time” (31%). I suggest we should focus our attention here to manage to convert many more readers. What do you think?
Finally, 33% of respondents mentioned that they “want to know how would other people benefit from their effort”. According to the approach of the German Survey, this information should be categorized as a “pre-condition” for people to join the Wikimedia movement. Information like this should be mentioned and extensively exemplified in order to assure new contributors that their effort really helps the movement towards a “world where any single person will freely share in the sum of all human knowledge.”
Any comments or suggestions?
I agree 100%. Well, it's hard to disagree when you link everything to specific data :) Half our readers are actually willing to contribute, but (1) 52% don't know where, (2) 21% don't know how, (3) 31% don't know when, (4) and 33% don't know why. We could show them where a new user like them could be helpful, and show them how to edit. But helping them find the time and the motivation is much trickier.
You're right, they don't know "where/what, how, when and why" to become a contributor.
We could try to answer their question about "when to find time to contribute" by creating a large variety of activities that request different amount of time and "why to participate if they feel they don't have enough info to contribute" by launching a campaign exlpaining that everyone has some good information to share with others.
What do you think?
Yes, if we could make it possible to do some things more quickly, and if we could flag those activities, I think we could really leverage some of our readers. Imagine if readers knew they could be helpful just by forwarding a news article to a WikiProject (or some other place where other contributors can mine it for unoriginal research). Imagine this were as easy as a click or two. That's just one example.
I'm skeptical of the premise of a campaign that says "everyone has some good information to share with others" (in the context of Wikipedia, at least; for some future version of Wikinews, that might be true). Everyone with basic literacy skills could potentially contribute usefully, but that's not based on having information to share, it's based on being willing and capable of doing the necessary research to collect, organize and present information. It's not about having information, it's about being able to find information. Most good work on Wikipedia is the product of editors learning about a topic as they go, not sharing knowledge they came to the project with.
I definitely agree about "creating a large variety of activities", and (per my other comment about the game-like features proposal) I think a lot of this could be done algorithmically without much need to hand-write one-off tasks.
I sometimes wonder if the fairly well-known "no original research" clause doesn't discourage people who don't realize that "no original research" does not mean "no research", it means that research that goes into building and editing wikipedia articles should be based on incorporating the work of others from other sources into this central repository.
I was thinking the other day that an orientation around "research that is good for wikipedia" or somesuch might help.
I mean I think it might help.
- In case you didn't know (it took me quite a while to notice it) it's possible to edit your posts, or even other people's, via the "More" pulldown at the end of each post.--71.235.36.97 14:53, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
I really like the presentation of the data this way. It makes me think that the big hurdle (sorry for the add'l analogy) is making the user interface/process of contributing easier and more transparent. For example, a feature that would pull up the 10 articles in the area you're interested that need work. For example, a WYSIWYG editor.
That would work and it made me think of GoogleWave. One of the things that I like about the wave technology is that people would easily be able to invite new contributors to collaborate on a topic they believe the new particpant care about. It could help us answer the questions about "where/what", "why" and probably "how", as the inviter could give new participants the assistance they want. Imagine the impact of most of our contributors inviting new participants to join the movement.
Right now there is a bit of a cultural bias *against* inviting people to edit articles on topics they care about - in particular, when articles are nominated for deletion, there is a stong stance against inviting "meatpuppets" who care about the topic to join the discussion.
I think technology that helps invite people who know and care about a topic to edit it would be good, but I am concerned it would receive cultural resistance. We also especially want to make sure invited participants understand how to edit articles without introducing bias.
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)
I really like this graphic, but I think that "have confidence that their contributions will be valued and kept" (listed as factor by 25% of respondents) should be listed as a Pre-condition as well, or maybe someplace else I'm not imagining. It was listed by enough respondents that it seems missing from this graphic.
I think that confidence could come from a) better learning procedures and confidence that they understand how to format and cite material so it as acceptable and will be accepted b) better understanding of how to monitor pages and how to understand and respond to input from other editors (including nominations for deletion or critical tags like needs citation or notability) c) better tools for monitoring pages, like getting some form of email notification turned on for wikipedia d) an improved sense that someone friendly will be there to help or guide them e) possibly a way for people to recieve feedback or approval for their editing - letting people rate pages or particular edits, for example. There are awards like barnstars, but no speficic way to earn those rewards.
There are several things that are preventing readers from becoming editors.
- First and foremost is the lack of a decent WYSIWYG interface. Wikipedia's current editing interface is relatively obsolete and archaic. Newcommers do not understand how to start a new section, or sign their names. I would suggest a simple javascript editor such as TinyMCE.
- Secondly, wikipedia lacks a modern communication system. Whereas most other sites use some type of IM, wikipedia largely relies on IRC which isn't newbie friendly. Creating/hosting some kind of easy instant communication system would make it much easier for newcomers to ask questions. Whereas most websites have forums, wikipedia has talkpages to which few newcomers can relate.
- Thirdly, there is the fact of rampant deletion, the endlessly building bureaucracy, and the admins with covert motives. The content added by new editors is often reverted, and in doing so, the new editor leaves wikipedia. Or, as the new editor begins to edit more, they get stonewalled in the quagmire of bureaucratic policies represented through otherwise meaningless acronyms. Or worse yet, the new editor is met by an undiplomatic and nationalistic admin who uses his powers to harass the editor until he quits.
My recommendation would be to add a more user friendly, WYSIWYG interface, and possibly have separate interfaces with more options for more advanced editors...one interface does not fit all.In the future, Wikipedia should move more towards collaborative editing in which several users can edit a page at the same time. Wikipedia should also implement some kind of instant communication system rather than relying on talk pages.
There also need to be a series of simple video tutorials that show to the newcoming user how to edit Wikipedia and how to respond/communicate with fellow Wikipedia.
Ideally, I'd like to see wikimedia move to a more intuitive editing interface like adobe incontext.
Edit: I managed to elicit a response from Philippe ^.^ It's good to see you're still watching. I also wanted to suggest that a banner ad be run promoting editing, something similar in context to the ones used to solicit donations and the like. I will certainly have a look at those recommendations and offer my remarks there. Cheers!
Hi Smallman12q -
There are a couple of recommendations around similar ideas at the Community Health task force.... Task_force/Recommendations/Community_health - I'm curious about your thoughts on them.
I think many people are deterred from contributing because of the current editor which requires coding. Many people will give up editing if they have to learn Wiki markup first. Also some people (like myself, I must admit) know enough of the markup language in order to make edits but are still deterred from making edits because using code is simply more difficult than writing plain text.
I think a more user friendly editor would be a great improvement to the Wikimedia projects. If people see an interface that looks like the word editor they are used to the technological barrier to making edits will be reduced significantly.
Currently the "Editing help" link is hidden at the bottom of the page. Just making it more visible might make editing easier.
I really like the idea of having a list of needed edits and having it displayed in a prominent place. It is always easier to make a contribution if you know there is a gap and know that your work will be appreciated.
I also think editors might be encouraged to make more edits if they are able to get a reward for it. It could be as simple as other users writing a "thank you" to them, it could be high score lists like "Top 100 new editors" or "Top ten editors on Frisian Windmills" or it could be a competition where the best edit wins a small gift like some Wikipedia merchandise. I know that there are several problems in this and I don't know if such systems can be effectively protected against cheating but it was just an idea I got.
For those who feel they don't have the time to make edits there could be a list of quick tasks that would only need a few minutes of work. Not every edit has to be an academic paper in order to be useful.
The people who don't think they have anything to contribute might also be encouraged to make edits if there were very specific tasks. Instead of having a task that said "Improve the article on wild boars" there could be several other tasks more like "Describe the cultural associations of wild boars in Germany". This example might not be the best but if people are asked to contribute in a specific way those who feel they have nothing to add will discover how they indeed are able to add things.
--84.238.80.188 08:49, 27 January 2010 (UTC)
I absolutely agree. The current editing interface requires a specialized knowledge of markup...which in and of itself isn't very friendly. There ought to be more tutorials, more prominently placed, and a high score list would certainly encourage new editors.