Topic on Talk:Growth/Discussing potential Growth ideas/2023

Please reply here for general discussion about these ideas, or create new topics as needed!

Here are some new ideas that you may consider:

• Reminder email: sometimes user registers and do only 1, 2 or 3 modifications on Wikipedia. Then, they left the website and never come back... What if we send a reminder email stating "You haven't edited Wikipedia since 1 month, here is a list of things to do... (...) If you have any question, do not hesitate to contact us...". We can also imagine proposing tasks based on the user interests (= has made several contributions about a movie, encourage to edit articles about cinema)
• Central notice for newcomers or IPs. Top of the website is the best place to advertise on Wikipedia and encourage people to start editing, to correct pages when they see a mistake...

Dear Growth team

I am wikipedian with 13 years experience.

I see you all are members of Wikimedia Foundation staff. So probably you have no any or may be a little experience whit middle sized Wikipedias. Yours significant point of view is that the most important barrier for new users are technical issue.

But the most important barrier is in my opinion the human factor. In the most middle sized Wikis today are a interverate bureaucracy (in the Hungarian wiki 24 admin from 29 are most as 7 year in office!) There are every thing hunted. One newcomer has no any chance make an edit fully adequate and will have some tick of (not rarely rude). The [[:en:Wikipedia:Be bold]] principle are long forgotten.

This is in Hungarian Wiki and probably the most middle sized wikis one cultural phenomena with historical roots. This countries are very susceptible for authoritarian leading. For one admin or bureaucrat every diverse meaning or diverse editing style should bee sanctioned. The most new editor after firs rude tick or sanction won’t edit more.

I know that the Foundation has no possibility take an effect how the local wikis are organized, but your effort with merely technical issues are a dead deal an [:en:White elephant]].

. ~~~~

Hello @Texaner, and thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Only people with a "(WMF)" suffix on their usernames are staff in our conversations.

As a volunteer, I'm a 10-years experienced Wikimedian, mostly active on French Wikipedia. I know, it is less time than you and my wiki is a bit bigger than the one where you're active on, but I can definitely say that I know your feeling. It was like that back in 2011, when the French Wikipedia community decided to change that and help newcomers through technical changes. The technical changes, through new pages and processes, have changed the bureaucracy.

We will indeed work on technical changes but I hope that would also promote social changes. Have you explored all 8 projects with your perspective? Have you read comments for each of them?

Hi Trizek

I have read all 8 projects but this projects are for me irrelevant. I have made in the last 10 years in high schools, association a lot of presentation and workshops about the Wikipedia editing. Also I have 4 years long a course about the Wikipedia for linguistic student at the Eötvös Loránd University. Naturally there was enough time to introduce the technical knowledge, because today the use some text editor is part of schoolwork. On the far side get to know the limitless, mostly stupid and void of sense editing rules in this short time was impossible therefor for new users my rule of thumb was: take a good article and use his buildup.

My experience was: that about 90 percent of participant have written his/her first article and no more. About 10 percent have written about 3-4 article and then have left the Wikipedia. Longtime wikipedian are today very few of them. I am reviewer on the Hungarian Wiki, I have ask the new editors gave a signal about her/his new edits so I have the opportunity follow they edits. I have got really no any complaint about technical problems, but even more about rude tick of’s.

With editors “from street” unfortunately I have no experience.

Thanks for the suggestions, @Arthur Crbz. It's a good point about the "reminder emails". The way our team has been thinking about it lately is as an expansion of the "Email new editors their impact" idea. Only a minority of new editors even make an edit, so we can only email a minority about their impact. But there is still an opportunity to email some encouragement, suggestions, or reminders to the rest of them.

And we think that using CentralNotice is potentially a great idea! It could definitely be good for directing new editors to the help desk or informing them about off-wiki events.