Excellent post, and you touch on many of the issues I have with "edit-a-thons" which typically have a 1% yield rate for converting "editors." We should also think about rebranding them so that making "editors" or even editing is not the goal. A lot can be done at these meetups relating to media literacy, becoming better readers of Wikipedia, or using it as a research tool. I think the emphasis on "editing" at meetups is too great, and it may start with ditching the "edit-a-thon" label, which we know folks in non-English language already do. -- Fuzheado | Talk 13:28, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Dear Amir, thank you for this essay - I could not agree more! Actually I am even angry about people who 'sell' a workshop as an instrument to recruit new editors, after all the experiences we made in the last years. Ziko (talk) 13:42, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- @Fuzheado: Editathons were never meant to recruit new editors - they were aimed at the existing community. Same as marathons are not meant to introduce people to running... But because the idea of an introductory workshop to editing wasn't really around at the time, people morphed editathons to try to do editor recruitment at same time! Thanks. Mike Peel (talk) 16:16, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- @Mike Peel and Wittylama: - Good point, it may be the right time to make that explicit separation. -- Fuzheado | Talk 16:30, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
YES to all of this! And one more important point: Editing events can have a positive public relations effect. Some people come to them with an open mind, thinking the Wikipedia thing might be crazy or might be great, but they don't have a feel for it. If we calmly communicate that the system works, it's open, we are sensible good-hearted people, and they are free to participate again from home or to abandon the project . . . then they will bring this understanding to their future interactions. That helps determine whether they support it and use it and recommend it in the future. To be successful our platform needs to be buffered by a large class of the public who thinks it is sensible and should not be undermined and attacked. Furthermore it gives them an educated view on fake news elsewhere or errors on our site.
Therefore when managing such an event I do not aim for unrealistic vision of creating permanent editors. Instead I think we want THIS event, right now, to be clear, sensible, and convincing. We want to put a few good bytes up. It should be in a comfortable place with some refreshments if possible. If there is a presentation or a handout it should be coherent. We want them to go away thinking they were welcomed into the system and it made sense and they succeeded at contributing something they can remember and recheck later. The goal is to do something good today, not to carry around a sack of homework and do it tomorrow. When the event is done hopefully they feel good about the site and the event. If that is accomplished, that is a pretty good success. -- econterms (talk) 15:14, 6 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- Thanks for this article, Amir! I'm happy if this dialogue becomes a starting point on what to improve. Pinging DGG (talk · contribs) who says he has run events that actually did produce editors. I have to agree that the usability issues are real, and there is more to add:
- The Main Page, where most of our readers land, is one of the few without an edit button
- If an IT-savvy person comes around that knows what 'view source' is, the main page is one of the most cryptic.
- Ideas on what to improve on Wikipedia appear only after the user has created an account
- Clicking "anyone can edit" leads to a manual, not to a list of simple things to improve
- Previewing an edit does not detect edit conflicts. Preview fine, page still doesn't save :(
- Totally unimportant things result in a barrage of complaints. E.g. not signing on a talk page is no issue at all, a bot does that. However, the bot makes it sound like a problem ("previously unsigned...") instead of neutrally adding "This comment was made by...", and some user will certainly issue a warning on top of that.
- I'm sure there is a lot more... someone willing to package this and drop it at the appropriate places? -Pgallert (talk) 06:50, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
- I entirely disagree. While the article makes the case that edit-a-thons might best be used for generating phabricator reports, I don't see any return on investment for my time and effort. WMF is spending money on this software development and I'm not hosting sessions just for free Beta testing. I've attended a dozen edit-a-thons and have another coming up in a couple weeks. If we're not helping new editors then I don't see the point. Chris Troutman (talk) 15:47, 7 February 2017 (UTC)[reply]
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