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Editing team Community Conversations: 2022, 2023, 2024

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Poster publicizing the Community Call the Editing Team will be hosting on 16 December 2022 at 16:00 UTC.
Community Call Details. Please feel free to share this!

Objectives

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  • This meeting will be an opportunity for new and experienced volunteers from Sub-Saharan Africa to:
    • Review, and share feedback about, the features/design concepts the Editing Team is considering to improve the visual editor as part of their upcoming project
    • Verify the needs the Editing Team is working to address reflect needs they experience/have experienced
    • Learn about opportunities to contribute to this project
  • This meeting will be an opportunity for members of the Editing Team to:
    • Verify that the conclusions they are drawing from the initial set of conversations they hosted align with what volunteers in Sub-Saharan Africa have experienced contributing to Wikipedia.
    • Learn what – if any – issues volunteers can foresee with the features/design concepts we are considering building

Information

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Project Overview

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A set of features for the visual editor to help new volunteers understand and follow the policies and guidelines necessary to make constructive changes to Wikipedia projects.

The Editing Team sees this project being helpful to:

  • Campaign Organizers interested in helping event participants make edits they are proud of and projects value
  • Newcomers and Junior Contributors arriving on the wikis motivated to add content about topics they are interested in
  • Senior Contributors motivated to ensure the content newcomers and Junior Contributors are adding is verifiable

Notes

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  • Volunteers agree these needs are real and should be addressed.
    • 30+ volunteers , many from Sub-Saharan Africa, joined a conversation about the new features the Editing Team is developing. The hope is to increase the likelihood that people who are new and motivated to contribute content and perspectives that are underrepresented within large language Wikipedias like English and French make changes that they feel good about and that existing community members value.
    • The conversation lasted 2.5 hours, 1 hour longer than originally scheduled.
    • Nearly half all of the volunteers who attended the 16 December session attendees expressed an interest in actively partnering with the Editing Team on the Edit Check project in one, or a mix, of the following three ways:
      • Amplifying the work: people who are well connected in the movement who can share opportunities and news about the project
      • Beta testing new features: people interested in technology who enjoy experimenting with new features
      • Organizing events: people who host events and would like to try new features with participants
  • Volunteers do not think technical solutions are sufficient for addressing the systemic issues they experience
    • While the volunteers on the 16 December were generally optimistic about the potential for the new features the Editing Team showed, people were clear in stating that they do not think software changes alone are sufficient for addressing the systemic bias people seeing to contribute content and perspectives that are underrepresented on large language Wikipedias face
    • Specifically, many experienced volunteers on the call who routinely add references with the content additions they make, reported having these edits questioned.  This happens more often than people think is justified, reverted or deleted.
    • Volunteers on the call shared that the volunteers who are reviewing the edits they make to English Wikipedia seem to be unfamiliar with the topics they are writing about and sources they are referencing (e.g., African newspapers and magazines) and respond by excluding these edits from the project.
  • Volunteers did not converge on a clear preference for the four design concepts the Editing Team presented
    • During the meeting, Nico shared four concepts for different user experiences the Editing Team is considering for prompting people to add references when they are attempting to expand an existing article.
    • While the volunteers in attendance seemed positive about this kind of feedback, people did not voice strong opinions about an approach or approaches that they think would be most helpful and effective.

Signup (Optional)

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  1. Whatamidoing (WMF)
  2. NAyoub (WMF)
  3. PPelberg (WMF)
  4. NRodriguez (WMF)
  5. EAkinloose (WMF)
  6. RYasmeen (WMF)
  7. STei (WMF)
  8. User:VPuffetMichel (WMF)
  9. User:PWaigi-WMF
  10. User:Geugeor
  11. User:Dyolf77 (WMF)
  12. User:MNeisler (WMF)
  13. Bachounda
  14. Ngoudechi
  15. Obedmakolo
  16. Joris Darlington Quarshie
  17. Timzy D'Great
  18. Jemima2019
  19. Zeemahgan
  20. Prince1g4
  21. Yaw tuba
  22. Bukky658 (talk) 04:39, 14 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  23. Charity00 (talk) 09:29, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  24. Agbalagba (talk) 13:28, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  25. AC Krah (talk) 14:36, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  26. Mbaidoo (talk) 14:43, 15 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  27. Macocobovi(talk)
  28. Kumi Haymondabutu
  29. Bolanle Adeleye:(talk)
  30. Olugold (talk)
  31. Dera xoxo (talk)
  32. Iwuala Lucy (talk) 10:19, 16 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  33. Senator Choko
  34. Lotinoh 3:33pm, 16 December 2022 (UTC)
  35. Spadeex
  36. Valentine_Badu (talk) 15:02, 16 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]
  37. Aliyu shaba]]Talk 07:43, 17 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

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Objective

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  • Learn what contributing to Wikipedia has been like for people living in and from Sub-Saharan Africa so that we, the Editing Team, can make improvements to the visual editor that hopefully make this process easier for future newcomers from the region. Meeting in French, focused on the French Wikipedia.

Attendees

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Notes

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  • Ce qui est difficile à savoir pour les débutants, comment les guider
    • Connaître et découvrir toutes les règles qui sont très exigeantes sur wikipedia.
    • C’est souvent en pratiquant et en faisant des erreurs que l’on découvre les règles. C’est un énorme investissement de temps et pas vraiment de bonnes manières de se former.
    • Il faut avoir une attitude d’apprentissage mais ce n’est pas toujours facile de persévérer lorsqu’on se fait supprimer ses articles.
    • Différents problèmes avec les sources:
      • Savoir qu’il faut sourcer.
      • Un manque de sources à propos d’un sujet.
      • Les sources ne sont pas reconnues en dehors du pays et donc l’article se fait effacer même s' il a assez de sources.
    • Comment guider les débutants:
      • Utiliser plus les brouillons pour retravailler et favoriser l'amélioration des articles. Être sur d’introduire le concept de brouillon aux débutants.
      • Réviser le message d’acceuil pour donner l’information en plus petits morceaux et progressivement.
      • Par défaut, les débutants devraient recevoir des emails. Ils ne font pas attention et ne prennent pas le temps de regarder les configurations.
      • Avoir une procédure d'accueil avec un aspect pédagogique pour aider les débutants  car ils ne se rendent pas compte qu’ils font mal.
  • Ce qui les a découragé
    • Se faire supprimer des articles à répétition.
      • L’effet va de “J’ai failli abandonner” jusqu'à "il faut tenir bon mais c’est très décourageant".
      • Beaucoup de personnes se découragent car c’est à répétition et le débutant est de bonne foi, y passe du temps et de l'argent.
      • Il faudrait expliquer pourquoi l’article est supprimé comme ça le débutant peut apprendre (aspect pédagogique).
    • Grosse frustration:
      • Ceux qui suppriment les articles se comportent comme des automates et efface en 1 minute. Il semble qu’ils ne prennent pas le temps de regarder le contenu.
      • Ceux qui passent en revue les articles ne connaissent pas les médias ou sources reconnues dans le pays.
    • Idée “d'améliorer en une minute au lieu d’effacer” ou “forme me moi au lieu d’effacer”.
    • Problèmes d’IP et blocage.
  • Ce qui les motivent
    • Partager leurs connaissances en général et représenter leur pays et culture sur wikipedia!
    • Partager l’article créé avec leurs amis.
  • Ce qui les a aidé, encouragé
    • Avoir un mentor ou une personne qui guide les premiers pas.
    • Commencer par Commons qui est plus convivial, plus amusant que Wikipedia.
    • Apprendre en suivant les MOOC.
    • Rencontrer des wikimédiens à WikiIndaba pour se faire aider et se faire connaître.
    • Plonger et prendre une attitude d’apprentissage.
    • Strategies:
      • Écrire beaucoup d'articles “en masse”, les faire supprimer, les améliorer et les publier à nouveau avec des améliorations.
    • Demander à des contributeurs expérimentés de commencer un article afin d’avoir plus de chances que l’article ne soit pas effacé
  • Autres choses:
    • Difficile de trouver son chemin sur wikipedia. Par exemple, mettre en avant le wikimooc, quand on apprend c’est très utile.
    • Les nouveaux User Groups ont des difficultés pour commencer et grandir. C’est compliqué et un vrai labyrinthe.

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Objective

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  • Learn what contributing to Wikipedia has been like for people living in and from Sub-Saharan Africa so that we, the Editing Team, can make improvements to the visual editor that hopefully make this process easier for future newcomers from the region.

Attendees

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  • Four volunteers from Nigeria, one volunteers from Ghana, and members of the Editing Team

Notes

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  • Wikipedia's policies are difficult to discover
    • People often come to learn about policies after they do something that is against them
    • Feedback about policies often comes in the form of a new article being deleted or a message newcomers receive on their talk pages which they find difficult to understand because these messages are often filled with technical jargon/shorthand that they are unfamiliar with
  • Interpreting and applying Wikipedia's policies is challenging  
    • People reported having difficulty with the following policies/guidelines when they first started out:
      • Copyright violations: it was not intuitive that you need to paraphrase content rather than copy and paste it directly into the wiki from the source
      • Citations: it was difficult to remember that you need to add citations and decide how many are "required"
      • Reliable Sources: it is difficult to know whether a source you, as a newcomer, would consider to be reliable is a source other volunteers at the project will consider reliable.
      • Notability: this policy seems subjective and unfairly disadvantages people in Africa who are writing about – what they consider to be notable topics and people – that lack media coverage. Some examples people shared: accomplished women, government agencies, schools/universities, and government organizations
  • Reasons people felt compelled to start contributing and what they experienced
    • "As a librarian, I was/am motivated to make Wikipedia's content useful, reliable, and relevant for African students."
    • "As a developer who has found Wikipedia useful, I wanted to give back. So, I started editing documentation."
    • "I started editing at a training. I started by correcting a spelling mistake and adding a table. It felt amazing to know how to add information directly and edit in my local language."
    • "A friend showed me how to create an account and set up a user page. I loved translation and contributing in my local language. This personal connection got me started and I fell in love with the platform."
    • "I felt compelled to write about women's and children's rights issues, especially child maltreatment."
  • Moments people felt supported contributing to Wikipedia
    • Receiving an encouraging message on their talk page
    • Wikimania, especially Wikimedian of the Year. Encouraging to see people appreciated for their efforts
    • Seeing a new article they created received a lot of page views.
  • Moments people felt discouraged contributing to Wikipedia
    • When a conference coordinator warned them that if they did anything wrong while contributing to Wikipedia, their account could get blocked
    • Having an article they created deleted

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Objective

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  • Learn what contributing to Wikipedia has been like for people living in and from Sub-Saharan Africa so that we, the Editing Team, can make improvements to the visual editor that hopefully make this process easier for future newcomers from the region.

Attendees

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  • Three experienced volunteers from Nigeria and members of the Editing Team

Notes

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  • Help is hard to find.
    • Newcomers have a difficult time navigating Wikipedia and finding/accessing the help they need on their own.
      • Feedback Senior Contributors sometimes hear from Juniors: all of the wiki pages look the same, which can make it difficult for them to remember/revisit pages they might have seen in the past.[1]
      • Help pages and conversations with Senior Contributors are also long and filled with jargon (WP:SHORTCUTS) which – to newcomers – can feel exclusionary and disempowering.
      • Wikipedia uses unfamiliar terms for common functions (e.g. "Talk" instead of "Discussion" or "Inbox")
      • Most people don't know how to search and find the answers.  If you want information on how to add color to an article, you search for "Color" and you end up at the encyclopedia article Color instead of at Help:Using colours.
  • Difficult to decipher how and why policies are applied.
    • Inclusion decisions/content standards are applied differently to different people. This discourages people and causes them to feel excluded.
    • Some articles at the English Wikipedia remain that are short and unreferenced. Meanwhile, many Africans have the articles they write declined despite being longer and sourced. Without it being clear what is accepted and what isn't, people who receive unfavorable judgements are led to think they are not welcomed here.
  • English Wikipedia says "no" a lot.
    • When you get blocked, it's easy/intuitive to think "Oh no, I did something wrong", which can feel demoralizing and drive people away.
    • Contributing to English Wikipedia feels more difficult/unforgiving/hostile, than contributing to a project like Igbo Wikipedia which feels more accepting of honest mistakes  and inclusive of people who are still learning.
      • One of the challenges of contributing to Wikipedia is that many of the people who are in positions of power/authority, are not from/aware of/experienced with the topics people from SSA are writing about.
  • Why Contribute? Why English Wikipedia?
    • For many of us, English is our lingua franca; it's natural for us to write in English and thus contribute to a project that is rooted in it.
    • If not us, then who?  Nobody is better suited to work on content related to our local context than us, the people who are from and live within it.
    • A fulfilling and constructive counterpart to more common forms of social media.
  • Mobile is crucial.
    • The majority of new people who arrive at training events come equipped with a smartphone. That's it.

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Objective

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  • Learn what contributing to Wikipedia has been like for people living in and from Sub-Saharan Africa so that we, the Editing Team, can make improvements to the visual editor that hopefully make this process easier for future newcomers from the region.

Attendees

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Notes

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  • Difference in social contexts
    • The English Wikipedia attracts people from around the world, many of whom do not have share a social context. This might help to explain why experienced volunteers, who are reviewing edits that add new content to the wikis about topics that are underrepresented within them, tend to have a difficult time intuitively assessing notably. As a result, these experienced volunteers may be more likely to delete content of this sort than they are to permit it.
    • Newcomers are pushed away from the projects when they see the effort they invested to create a new article "thrown away" by way of an experienced volunteer adding a speedy deletion tag to it. It would be more helpful if rather than deleting these articles Seniors moved these articles to the creators' sandbox.
  • Underrepresentation creates a vicious cycle
    • Contributing to English Wikipedia can feel stressful and the newcomers Joris has spoken with have been driven away because of this.
    • The lack of admins from Africa within English Wikipedia seems to perpetuate content inclusion / exclusion issues.
    • Volunteers from Africa feel tired/drained by being repeatedly asked to justify/explain a topic's notability to people in power who are not from the region.
    • The path to becoming an Admin at the English Wikipedia seems unclear
  • IP Blocks and Range Blocks
    • A blig issue that prevents everyone in the Africa region. From, individual editors to event organizers.
  • Ideas that could both help newcomers and free mentors up to focus on more scalable efforts
    • Providing trainings on tools that could help newcomer volunteers to contribute to en.wiki effectively
    • Clear workflows for resolving IP blocks and range blocks themselves
  • Editing Onboarding
    • The majority of the newcomers Joris has worked with started editing through an organized event/programs and few continue contributing after the fact. Maybe because these newcomers did not have access to the support and advice in the moments they needed it.

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Objective

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  • Learn what contributing to Wikipedia has been like for people living in and from Sub-Saharan Africa so that we, the Editing Team, can make improvements to the visual editor that hopefully make this process easier for future newcomers from the region.

Attendees

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  • Nicolas Ayoub, Mohammed Bachounda, Imelda Brazal, Ilana Fried, Georges Fodouop, Peter Pelberg, and Liam Wyatt.

Notes

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  • Challenges newcomers face
    • The editing interfaces newcomers use lack education which lead to the problems shown in the slides we shared,
    • Add content by copying and pasting it directly from a source or adding content without citing a reliable source,
    • Newcomers mistakenly think that they EITHER need to copy the content from a source directly OR paraphrase content from the source without citing it (by fear of plagiarism).
  • Motivations for contributing to Wikipedia
    • Correct information I considered to be false/incorrect about a topic I’m familiar with,
    • Ensure my/peoples' perspectives/experiences/culture/traditions/customs/food/dress/etc. are accurately represented within the wiki,
    • Experience the joy/satisfaction with adding information for the rest of humanity to see.
  • Challenges with sourcing knowledge
    • The knowledge does not exist digitally
    • The knowledge is not represented in, what mature/Western wikis consider to be, reliable sources of information (e.g. non-written knowledge for instance)
  • Things that Nico, Peter, and the Editing Team ought to remember:
    • Over time, "learning by doing" seems to be a more effective method for teaching newcomers how to contribute to Wikipedia
    • Over time, experienced volunteers at mature wikis have come to expect that every edit be "correct." Gone are the days of adding some text and someone else coming along to add a source to verify it. Newcomers have a high bar to meet.
    • Newcomers who are contributing to Wikipedia by way of participating in a campaign are likely to have different motivations/experiences than people who are arriving to edit by themselves.
    • The checks should not prevent people from contributing content…there is some information that simply cannot be sourced in a way the policies, as they are currently written, consider acceptable. We should not discourage contributions of this sort.

Note: the Editing Team gathers sources and references relevant to the projects they work on on Editing team/Research/References sub-page.

References

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  1. ↑ Note: this observation is supported by research the the Growth Team did around the design of the Help Panel. See slide 15.
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