Question: would someone like to interview an aspiring editor?

I've been corresponding lately with a donor named Jonathan, who lives in Texas. He's been a supporter of Wikipedia for several years, and has just recently started thinking about starting to edit.

In many ways, he would be an ideal Wikipedia editor: he is smart, literate, and shares our goals and values. He's been using Wikipedia for many years,and has a good understanding of what it is and is not. And, he's facing all the usual newbie challenges as he thinks about beginning to edit: he's not sure where or how to start, he's worried he has "nothing new to say," and he is wishing he had a mentor, or some other coaching/support.

I think an interview with Jonathan could be a useful piece of qualitative information for the task force: my guess is that 80% of the challenges he faces would be common to most/all new editors.

If someone here is interested in interviewing him / corresponding with him, in an effort to get a deeper understanding of "new editor" motivations and barriers, I would be happy to set that up: let me know.

(Just to be super-clear: he has never edited. He is thinking about editing, but hasn't tried yet.)

Sue,

Do you know where in Texas he is, roughly? (Answer by email if it's private, if you'd like...) I'm there pretty often, I could do a face-to-face or just deliver wiki-love. :)

Philippe, yes, we can talk F2F tomorrow, when I see you in the office :-)

Yeah, please remind me to introduce you; that would work perfectly, and then you can introduce him to the appropriate task force if you think he could be useful for them. He's a lovely guy; he might be a great case study. Thanks :-)

Delightful. :)