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Increase retention of quality, experienced editors at Wikipedia

I certainly welcome this initiative which I interpret as an attempt to keep good people involved in Wikipedia. I think, however, that it is equally important to make sure that reasonably new editors who show interest and ability are given the encouragement they need to continue working with us. I constantly see new editors frightened away by all the templates plastered on their initial attempts or indeed by good contributions being deleted on technical grounds (e.g. lack of properly presented references). Wikipedia's many bots are often play a part here. Now that young people are increasingly happy to spend their time on Facebook or Geocaching where they are likely to get immediate and usually positive responses to their contributions, Wikipedia by contrast often unintentionally creates a feeling of mistrust, incompetence and even hostility. Even for some of the more experienced editors, this can lead to disputes which in turn provide grounds for blocking and then socking.

I would therefore suggest first that we change this goal to the more inclusive "Increase retention of competent editors at Wikipedia". Secondly, rather than becoming bogged down in emotional reactions, that we attempt to base our work as far as possible on an objective, statistical analysis of who drops out, after what period of involvement and, if possible, for what particular reason(s). We will of course need to call on the assistance of those who can develop templates able to detect the pertinent data and symptoms (unless such tools already exist?). But for the time being, and before I make any changes to the project page, I would be interested to hear whether there is any interest in following this approach. - Ipigott (talk) 09:35, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

  • I hesitate to use "competent" only because that is a bit subjective, but that is the goal, to keep good people here and not scare away new users. Personally, I try using hand written warnings or notifications rather than templates in all but the most obvious cases for that reason. And I agree 100% that getting bogged with emotions should be avoided. We do need to objectively seek out the problems and we should calmly and steadily work toward real world solutions, not just complain about them. Sounds like you are right on target with the objectives. I like the idea of the project being a broad one, dealing with anything that is related to maintaining quality editors here, from rewards to removing abuses, and everything in between. Making changes to the front page is encouraged, the project is less than a day old. I just haven't seen a centralized project to deal with retention, a place to discuss policies before attempting an RFC (which often fail due to a lack of planning), and to learn what the real problems are so they can be addressed. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 12:06, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I used "competent" to cover "quality, experienced" but on this basis, unless anyone disagrees, I think we should go for Increase retention of editors at Wikipedia. We could perhaps also include collaboration with Wikimedia initiatives such as their strategy for participation and specifically their participation priorities. They also have a recent page titled Growth and Contribution Program/FAQ which may be of interest. It may be a good idea to keep these initiatives informed of this new Wikipedia project. - Ipigott (talk) 13:16, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm in wholehearted agreement with establishing a broad based project with the basic building block (Increase retention of editors at Wikipedia) of retaining quality editors. Many, if not most, of the troublesome editors self-identify themselves by their actions. One of our primary focusses should be on the new editors that show potential but have gone Up the Down Staircase. To often they are chastised to such an extent that their potential is never realized. They quit and rarely return. Of course, the other end of the situation is just as important; long time quality editors that get tarred and feathered and run out of town. I'm not suggesting that we join the various "fights" and increase the drama. But we do need to be a calming voice that reminds others that losing editors has a cost. ```Buster Seven Talk 20:23, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Demagogues

I won't link to the article as it is in such a sorry state. You'd best be looking to a dictionary.

Pretty good examples can be found on any given hour at ANI, people who enjoy voting just for the sake of voting will tag a +1 according to a 3 second scan of what is going on, so they can say "I was here too", people who vote contrary to what they believe is correct because they dislike the person they are voting against, actually get your own summaries.

The fact of the matter is that wikipedia can't be fixed, the examples that I have created prove it beyond doubt, just as every study given says the same thing. The fact is, your project is well meaning and earnest, however, getting the party crashers out of your house once they are in charge is beyond your resolve. They legally own your house.

Any 3 people can join together and carve a path through the crowds of good editors on wikipedia, removing from the project those that they don't like, study after study has shown as much.

In the playground at school, kids shout 'he's the bad guy !!' and everyone enjoys the chase and the repetitive shouts of who is an indian/cowboy/baddie and the ensuing ruckus. They do not need to grow out of this mentality in order to participate in the process of wikipedia, you do not have any methods available to filter them out, nor any resolve to do so. The school council report, mentioned several times on this page show the percentages of editors who are growing tired of these games and leaving, however as there are no teachers in the playground, the kids are not going to listen to the school council's boring report, and you're not going to explain to the children that shouting 'your the baddie' is not appropriate in an adult environment.

(everyone can skip half of the next paragraph it's not for you)

Incidentally, although you cannot see the success of the example template that I have created for you on my userpage, I'd like to draw attention to the fact of it's success prior to your ability to see that success, you can ask Auntie Pesky why that is, although she needs to keep away from putting words into my mouth in regards to naming the equipment I have, because one of her labels is wrong. The rest of what she says, that we are all on such a scale is fine, but I'm not on the scale for the reasons she may think, and I do tell the absolute truth to you Auntie, but you just don't believe me sometimes, like for the numbers that I give, you said I can't do that, but I can, and the scale isn't indicating the equipment, it's just indicating the shadow of what I have available. Also, you have a recent slab saying we all have the ability to do that for some animals. You know where the link is between the two topics.

I was saying, the ramp-up time on the template, even though I may have set the measuring point a little high for quick success, the duration is the measurement of the resolve you see, it does show that it's already far too late to save the show, even though the example is still a useful success from the future. The equation can't be changed, in years to come you'll see that clearer than you can now. Oh sorry for changing languages in the paragraph above, that was a private chat really. I do that a lot, put private messages in public places like on Richards page, and he issues the CRC check saying message received 100%. It's like the old modems that work on phone lines, the negotiation of protocols available sounds funny, but once established you can change languages mid-sentence to address different sectors of the readership demographic, it's just easiest this way rather than resorting to email. I can't be bothered, I can't be bothered with any of this really and I don't like the condescending remarks that it's set up for me, I see and accept the future(even if you don't) and shortcut my wiki-life, I don't need 200,000 edits to reach the same league as everyone else, my viral art is a faster shortcut to examine with great detail the perspectives of the veterans, one day you'll catch up to the shortcomings of this place, where the endless commentaries, professionally prepared reports from the committee and endless constant examples won't illustrate this for you, reality and alternate projects will. Whatever.

Anyhow after proofreading, I'll clarify that I'm still willing to help predict the success and failure rates of any little mechanism that you like to propose, but only if you want me to do so, and so long as you can pass a basic screening process (instant and painless I assure you, wasn't it Dennis?) then I'm happy to do so by email if you want to keep my lovely vet rep out of it. Penyulap ☏ 02:16, 5 Jul 2012 (UTC)

  • I understand you have a degree of doubt Penyulap, and a bit of pessimism as well. I would expect no less ;) I think as time goes on, you will learn a bit more about me as well. As I've told others, I've literally spent most of my life doing things that others said wasn't possible, or would fail, while they watched from the sidelines. I am not a skilled editor, templates and categories are outside of my experience. Formatting is hit and miss with me. I don't have all the answers, or even most of them. What I do have is persistence and a willingness to work with others and let them do what they do best. You get the best out of people when they do what they love. I'm an optimist who turns everything he touches into rock soup and it usually works. I only bring the kettle of water and the rock, everyone else brings the meat. Or maybe I'm just the luckiest man alive. But I have high hopes because I believe that most people want to do the right thing, want Wikipedia to be successful and want to be a part of something bigger than themselves. My talents are limited to getting people together and being willing to make the first step, then supporting others who are more talented than I am. As Drmies might say, I'm just ballsy enough to start something and see it through. I'm not leading anything here. Leadership isn't assigned, it develops from within, and we will soon see who the real leaders are here. The end result is never what I expect, but it is always something good. Honestly, it is going even better than I hoped, and we have only just begun. Not everyone "gets me" either, and some assume the worst. That doesn't change who I am, however. I'm not sure what the project will look like in a month or a year, but I'm confident that good things will come of it. You will see. You don't need the answers, you just need to be willing to pick up the broom and help in little ways. It all adds up. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 01:07, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Contribution Team

I recently discovered Wikipedia:Contribution Team which was a project that seemed to have similar goals as this one. It may be useful to invite members of that project to this one and to look at some of the attempts of that project. One good idea I saw was New Editor mentoring. This could help with retention of new editors who would otherwise quickly leave. I'll be thinking about this idea some more and may draft an initiative proposal of sorts to be discussed. Ryan Vesey Review me! 19:56, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Update

Thanks to John Carter for helping with some formatting. Ryan Vesey is working on getting us a part time bot. Many others have helped on a great many other parts as well. We should have a userbox link on the front page with a few userboxes to choose from very soon. I'm not ignoring the talk here but haven't had time to read everything as I've been trying to tell a lot of people who have an interest and skills that will help us work toward these goals. We still aren't sure what the solutions will be, but soon we can start compiling lists of editors who have left and perhaps we can contact to come back, editors at risk of leaving, and of course we can start working on policy ideas that will encourage people to stay. I've also made it a personal goal to try to find at least a couple of people, typically wikignomes, who have gone unnoticed and unrewarded, and give them a well deserved Barnstar for their specific contributions. All of this is within the goals of keeping great authors and editors here. So pardon the mess and confusion, as we are just now building this house. Thanks to everyone for their patience and shared desire to keep good editors here. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 22:25, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

As you must know, some of us are waiting on the sidelines, eager to participate but reluctant to get in the way. The foundation looks good and the support beams for the roof and walls look substantial. Whenever you're ready for the laborers/carpenters/etc. to start, just give a whistle. In the meantime, I'll be welcoming new editors, random editing, and dispensing some barnstars...and lessening drama whenever possible. ```Buster Seven Talk 22:43, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Excellent! Helping here isn't about what we say here as much as what we do away from here. Lessening drama, getting involved with new editors is a great way to help, as is finding and recognizing ignored editors. I expect to submit an RfA (d'oh!) RFC in a day or two that affects what we do here, via a change in WP:BLOCK to make it a bit "nicer" and clear up a few things. Nothing major, just clarifying what we all already believe. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 23:30, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
You better submit an RfC. We wouldn't want any Wikipedia policies leaving the project after a bad RfA. I mean if WP:V got up and left because it felt like it wasn't wanted anymore, we'd have a bit of a conundrum on our hands.  Ryan Vesey Review me! 23:35, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
D'oh! No, I've already had one RfA this year, that is plenty. I'm hoping you pass yours Ryan, you know you have my support. If you don't, you will certainly pass in 6 months but I think that Wikipedia will benefit more from you having it sooner rather than later. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 23:40, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

Welcome

I'm seeing a lot of discussion in a lot of place regarding editor retention, but not a coordinated effort. This is that coordinated effort, a way for us to actually do something beside speak out in random venues. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 15:10, 1 July 2012 (UTC)

  • Some of the frustration with editors is obviously the way that blocks are handled, which is confusing at best. Often one admin blocks where another would not. I don't think we will every get real parity, but a bit more consistency is needed, and I think we need to develop a consensus to be less quick to block in 3RR situations in particular. Dr. Blofeld attempted a policy that required notification before blocking at the pump, and while I don't think a policy is going to happen, I do think that having enough admins agree to this can lead to a consensus about the subject. This can be used to notify those that block too quickly, and provide a means to change some minds about drive by blocking. To me, it isn't about assigning blame as much as changing minds, and renormalizing the system to be less reactive when dealing with known editors. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 17:26, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
    • It's not just blocks. When I was blocked (validity of which is highly questionable) there was a big rush to put only templates on my user page. But when Will Beback got banned by arbcom, there was this outcry to keep his user page intact, to the point that arbs got involved. Explain the equity in that. PumpkinSky talk 19:17, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
      • One issue at a time :) You are welcome to start a whole different thread on templating, and add that to the front page as a bulleted concern. We have to focus on ONE, singular issue at a time (without ignoring others of course) to keep it focused on possible solutions. Otherwise it turns into a bitch fest. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 19:56, 1 July 2012 (UTC)
        • Hey Dennis, just wanted to say that this a great idea. :) If folks weren't aware, there's a similar page specifically about stuff the Foundation is doing on this front. I'll try to make sure we drop a link to this WikiProject somewhere there. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 17:47, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
          • I see it as two-fold. Blocks obviously prevent the user from continuing to contribute, but not blocking is painful to other editors tolerating the person for whatever behavior they are being blocked for. User:King4057 17:18, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Your comment probably belongs in another section, but I have wondered myself about the possibility that more blocks (good blocks of course) might help editor retention. It may sound crazy, but I don't think we deal with pov editors well enough. We certainly are erratic about how we treat violations of our civility policy (one of our 5 pillars), and we aren't fast enough about stopping edit-warring. Dougweller (talk) 18:10, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
That is tricky. I'm quick to block spammers and vandals, but not so much for mild to moderate incivility. Some of our best editors can be pretty rude at times. To be honest, the hardest ones to block are the CIR disruptive types, who bog talk pages down with reverts and 'I can't hear you' methods. That isn't as obvious, but obstructionist editors are probably worse than the occasional "asshat" calling editor, because they affect the entire group editing that article and it tends to go on for longer periods of time. You call someone an asshat, it is obvious. You constantly dispute obvious facts from someone who isn't constantly at the button to revert you, it is less obvious. RFPP would be an interesting study in how it affects retention, from editors who just give up trying to fix stuff because of stubborn editors that have great persistence and no clue. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 21:44, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Innocent prisoner's dilemma

Moved to here.

Please do not add any material here.--Bbb23 (talk) 17:57, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Reasons editors leave

Moved to [1].

Please do not add any material here.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:48, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Shouldn't we see do some research first?

There have been other discussions about this. I think there was a survey? There are figures about editors produced monthly, recently discussed on Jimbo's page (there was some problem about the figures but there was also a suggestion that the figures were flat, ie not gaining, not losing, recently). Before we do anything we need to see what's been said/researched/done before. If we don't do this first, I don't think this is going to fly. Dougweller (talk) 16:54, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

  1. Former Contributors Survey Results
  2. Editor Trends Study
  3. Findings from the Wikimedia Summer of Research
  4. and last but not least, the metrics report card that the WMF uses.
Thanks for that Steven, I'll have to get some reading done tonight :) Ryan Vesey Review me! 18:17, 2 July 2012 (UTC)
Be careful of 'flat' statistics, they are a lie. If the number of editors remains a constant, then editor retention is extremely bad. The penetration of the Internet into people's homes, the rising population of the earth and so on all point to a wikipedia that is being marginalised if it is not growing beyond the growth-rate of the Internet, as it has not yet reached its saturation point, or if it has reached saturation, we're all screwed like I've been telling you all along :) Penyulap ☏ 06:17, 3 Jul 2012 (UTC)
Research is a very good idea, but the main concern is what the surveys may be saying as to a why. Do these surveys say that? What we need to do is gather all the information together into a Project subpage, perhaps under tools or even just this projects own individual page for editor srveys and studies etc. The well informed editor in these areas can encourage others to look at these statistics and discuss what potential they have towards retaining more editors. I would suggest this project be sister'd to the other Wikipedia main Wikipedia Help Projects.--Amadscientist (talk) 00:19, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Procedural suggestion

I know this is all very new, so my suggestion is obviously open to discussion and tinkering. It seems like we are having discussions on different issues all on this Talk page. The issues seem at least partly related to the "initiatives" on the project page and perhaps the "reasons for leaving" list on the project page. I would like to see subpages for each discussion and reserve the Talk page for more global issues connected to the project. I think that would help structurally, and it would also permit editors to keep track of which discussions they are participating in (watchlists don't keep track of topics on a single page).--Bbb23 (talk) 23:56, 2 July 2012 (UTC)

well just get started, it's a goer, you can count on that one. If there is one thing that the lot of us can surely do, it's talk for several screen-fulls per day for the first week at least, so there is plenty for the sub pages to get them started. Penyulap ☏ 06:22, 3 Jul 2012 (UTC)
I agree. Perhaps you, Bbb23, would like to make a start on at least two or three yourself. I think we should also try to develop a better understanding of how these discussions can lead to actual improvements in the situation on the basis of action. So perhaps each of the subpages could be divided in to two sections: discussion and ideas for active follow-up. We could, for example, consider publicizing suggestions for improvement through other WikiProjects and draw up a list of influential contacts liable to assist us in achieving our aims. We could also use Signpost or sites such as the Village Pump to attract wider interest. But there may be better suggestions. In any case, we should guard against simply becoming a talk shop where people can complain about the treatment they've been experiencing. - Ipigott (talk) 07:42, 3 July 2012 (UTC)
I agree and expected it to happen. I am NOT the best person for formatting, and since we are making rock soup here, I just brought the kettle. Everyone should feel free to just jump in and make changes. This is NOT my project, it is Wikipedia's, and everyone who is concerned about all the different reasons we lose good editors. I would absolutely love for someone to format, change and fix my start. My work was to start the process and setup some basic guidelines for the purpose of the project, implementing it is everyone's job equally. No permission is required. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 15:46, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Finally got around to doing something about this. I've created a new subpage for a list of current discussions. There is a link to that list on the main page under the new topic Current discussions. I've moved ONE discussion from the Talk page (innocent prisoner's dilemma) as a protype to a subpage of the current discussions subpage. I've provided links to navigate through this, and I've "closed" the innocent prisoner's dilemma discussion on the project Talk page with a comment.

I will do the other discussions once I've received some feedback on this one.--Bbb23 (talk) 18:07, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

No feedback yet, so I think I'll do one more. BTW, having each discussion on a separate page has another benefit. You can watch that one discussion, which you can't do with topics on a page.--Bbb23 (talk) 22:44, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Suspicion of administrator cliques

Can I just ask for clarification on where and how we're getting the "reasons why ppl leave"? Especially this - "suspicion of administrator cliques". This project is shooting itself in the foot if it's casting aspersions or repeating bad faith accusation against any large group on WP without actual evidence or a proper rational. If this is in fact a real issue can we see the research for it - I can't find it at the Former Contributors Survey Results. I'm genuinely interested to see if this is actually a problem for a large group of former editors--Cailil talk 15:44, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not sure, because I actually don't look at it very often, but I get the impression that theory might be a particularly strong one at the Wikipedia Review site. And, honestly, even if it is just a few retirees who leave because of this, there probably is cause to at least consider the question. I have seen more than a few editors of some seniority indicate suspicions of such cliques, and whether others actually experience them or not, it does make a handy thing some came blame their own problems on. John Carter (talk) 17:59, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
I see where you're coming from John but it'd like to see data on this if there is some. Because if there's an actual issue (and I can imagine some situations where it is at least possible - I've heard those suspicions too, but IMHO they're just another instance of "protected editors" that we were talking about above re: equal enforcement).
But then if it is "a handy thing some came blame their own problems on" it wont help us retain good faith editors. Again we need hard evidence because if we persecute the whole sysop corp (or give the "appearance" of such persecution) for the grievances of appropriately sanctioned users we're shooting ourselves in the head, not the foot. My fundamental point is this we shouldn't have aims that aren't evidence based, and we shouldn't give what we assume are ppl's reasons for leaving we should discover what they actually are--Cailil talk 20:06, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
It's a matter not of cliques, but the appearance of there being cliques, because it is in the eye of the beholder. If no-one is able to convince them that there are no cliques, then it has the same effect as if there were. Penyulap ☏ 19:55, 7 Jul 2012 (UTC)
The one way I can think of to address this in a potentially effecitve way would be for there to be maybe some sort of regular review of complaints of departing editors. Admittedly, this sort of suspicion is hard to completely quell, because conspiracy theories are such a big deal in society in general now, but if we did have something like a morbidity and mortality conference which might be able to designate individual specific editors to review any such complaints, it might be able to do or propose something useful to reduce the problem, or, maybe, say they could see no particular evidence of a clique existing. Even then, all we could probably get would be a "not guilty" verdict, not an "innocent of the charges" one, but that would still probably be better than the current situation. John Carter (talk) 20:13, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Such conferences are the norm across all industries, air traffic control and airline crashes are an obvious example. Wikipedia as a whole should be advanced enough to support the concept, but the admins are certainly not mature enough to handle the idea, not a lot of the ones I come across anyway. Penyulap ☏ 20:21, 7 Jul 2012 (UTC)
(ec)I see your point John, but I'd go for more of a review of editors in decline rather than the retired already. I explained why above. Also that'll get skewed by banned users and indefinitely blocked users etc - who are being excluded from the site for good reason. We need to focus on the other lost users. And I still think there's an "appearance" here of admin bashing (and a number of posts based on poisoning the well) there's a lot of rhetoric and very little data or examples of this and that'll go nowhere. I've seen a heck of a lot of good admins throw-in-the-towel because of the abuse we get. There's nothing here suggesting that that should even be considered.
The Evil Admin is a great internet meme, but it's not a great way to help us learn anything about editor retention.
Interestingly there are actually academic studies on the matter of wikipedia sysops. And on the wider issue Seth Anthony had a powerpoint presentation at wikimania in 2006 about retaining content editors[2] do we know if his suggestions were even tried? My point remains we need to base our work on actual verifiable evidence not on opinions or assumptions - that'll just make things worse--Cailil talk 20:37, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
I agree with most of your points above myself, actually. I was myself only thinking to really start such questioning of editors who, more or less, retire from this point forward. Those who have already been inactive for some time might very easily have grudges based on outdated policies and guidelines which may have already been resolved. And, FWIW, if the academic study you point to above is one of multiple such, I would love to see an article that meets WP:NOTABILITY on wikipedia administrators here. Certainly, having prominent links to such independent sources here, if they honestly don't support the "Evil Admin" meme here, would be a great page to help deal with this issue. John Carter (talk) 20:55, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Currency. Penyulap ☏ 21:15, 7 Jul 2012 (UTC)
Yeah I can see a few reliable sources on sysops so an article should be possible - if not on wikipedia admins on "Peer governance" or "Promotion on wikipedia". The article mightn't be very long at this point but there should be enough to start--Cailil talk 01:34, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

I have noticed that in some content regarding say religion and other belief systems, including some political ones, there is a very strong tendency of newer editors to try to get material regarding their new, exciting, controversial, and sometimes not clearly notable ideas on major articles first. In many cases the books from which the material might be sourced are notable, or there might legitimately be a spinout article from a main topical article, but that doesn't occur to a lot of newer editors. I think the other WF entities, like WikiNews, WikiQuote, WikiBooks, and the like might allow such material, but newer editors might not be as aware of them, and/or, often, want their material to get the greatest immediate visibility possible.

Maybe, and this is just a maybe, we might want to get some of the welcome templates to more clearly indicate the existence of these other entities, with indications as to what sort of material indicating their essential characteristics. So, for example, the recent or maybe still ongoing Azawad war would be a great topic for multiple timely and regular news stories, but that same data might not necessarily get all the weight in our few articles that some newer editors might like. I might like seeing the Main Page include in its news section some links to major WikiNews articles, or the WikiNews main page, as well. I definitely do think that we might be able to keep a few more editors in general if they also more quickly and easily learned of the existence of the other entities, particularly if those other entities might be a better place for a lot of their material. John Carter (talk) 18:56, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Instead of changing generic welcome templates why not put a note just on relevant articles? ϢereSpielChequers 19:38, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
That would work too. Particularly for contentious topics, like maybe Jesus and Falun Gong, or the name of Cote d'Ivoire, creating a talk page notice saying something like "The existing content of this article has been arrived at after extensive content of the existing available sources. If you believe that new material should be added, please create an article detailing the general theory (or book) involved, and a link to that article here to allow others to review and discuss the material before significant changes are made." It does sound kind of bureaucratic and creeping instructions, but it might also keep some editors from banging their heads against the walls from the very beginning. John Carter (talk) 19:53, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm not convinced that a talkpage notice would be enough. I was thinking more of an editnotice for the article. Something that everyone who tries to edit such articles will see, but which won't be visible to the readers. ϢereSpielChequers 23:49, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
I like the edit notice idea WSC - we can do this for user talk pages it should be technically possible to do it for articles. We could also stick a link of the TOS in there too--Cailil talk 01:43, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Jesus has one at Template:Editnotices/Page/Jesus, Falun Gong doesn't. I don't know how much difference the Jesus one has made, how much difference semi Protection makes or indeed whether the Jesus one addresses the contentious bits of the article. But it would be worth looking at that and seeing if we can test on Falun Gong or others to see if such notes reduce conflict or just annoy newbies. Also I'm not sure why this was done by a template not an editnotice and why it displays double on my pc. ϢereSpielChequers 10:58, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
As far as displaying goes its fine for me - perhaps this is more of a village pump proposal that all articles (especially ones covered by ArbCom rulings or other probations) should have these. Its possible that the template gets around something that's in, or not in, the mediawiki software currently--Cailil talk 12:40, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
If we wanted to display something to all editors in Mainspace then yes we'd need to go via the village pump. I doubt if we'd get consensus but if there was then a change to the relevant Mediawiki page would probably be the easiest and most efficient way to do it. But changing something for all articles is a very different proposition than doing something for contentious ones or where restrictions apply. The complex thing is that such templates need to be very specific to the article, otherwise they will quickly lose impact and authority. That's why my preference would be to do some tests to see if they do take heat away from contentious topics. If we can demonstrate that they are an effective way to preempt edit wars then I suspect all we need do is publicise that and we will see more editors introducing them. Of course the risk is that they will be used by those who are trying to own articles to freeze out other opinions, we may need safeguards there. ϢereSpielChequers 23:09, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Questions for retired users

I have started, and by started I mean just barely started, a page at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Retired editors questionnaire, for us to use in the future when and if we contact any retired editors regarding the circumstances which led to their leaving. I have a very strong feeling that the rest of you probably have much better ideas about this than I do, so I welcome any additional questions, points of consideration, clarification, rephrasing for a more neutral tone, or whatever. John Carter (talk) 17:56, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

isn't this just the same photocopy of the same report ? how does a second set of figures on the same questions not waste the opportunity ? shouldn't it be used as a second step rather than a repeat of the first step ? why not propose a list of changes and ask about their effect ? Penyulap ☏ 20:15, 7 Jul 2012 (UTC)
I'm honestly not sure what "same report" you are referring to. If you know of another body which intends to do ultimately the same thing from now on, then I could see some redundancy and wasted effort. And, regarding your second point, about a "list of changes", certainly, anyone is free to add whatever they would like to to the page in question. I do think that a group of questions along the lines of "If (proposed idea X) were in effect at the time of your departure, do you think that being able to point toward that (policy, guideline, or whatever) in your own circumstances might have helped resolve the situation better," might be a very good idea if we could come up with some neutral, non-leading phrasing. John Carter (talk) 22:16, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
I think Penyulap is confused. Well done on starting this John. There are 2 approaches we can take to this questionnaire: one (albeit less structured than yours) would be simply to ask users to post on a sub-page about their reasons for leaving? What else contributed to their leaving? What kept them here? What would they like to see improved?
Otherwise if we want to jump into asking detailed questions I suggest first reviewing the evidence about ppl leaving that we have[3] - it tells us that we can only work with 25% of the total of contributors who are leaving (50% leave for personal reasons and the other 25 for software complexity reasons - the first lot we can't help, eth second is teh job of the interface guys). Of that 25% some will be banned/blocked/disruptive so lets say that's 5% of the total. That leaves us with 20% who's bad experiences were based on two things reverts and negative interactions.
I've been looking at other peer reviewed literature on wikipedia's social dynamics - what I've read so far highlights reverting as a serious point of conflict between users and links it both with POV warriors and negative interactions based around meeting a small number of editors in a contentious/controversial area. This is what I mean by doing the research first - a number of ppl have already identified the problems and offered possible solutions IMHO we should be testing these and assessing what can be implemented (and coming up with ways to convince the community to do so). And again John, I think this is a good step forward towards that and thanks for the work--Cailil talk 01:26, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
This is a really dubious addendum to the above. As a party peripherally involved in a current ArbCom, I note that two of the editors who have been involved with certain content for some time have announced their retirement from that subject based on the conduct of others, whom they describe as POV pushers. The ArbCom hasn't returned a decision yet, and the individuals I mentioned were the "defendants" in the request for arbitration, so it might well be eventually judged that they were themselves in the wrong. But it might be useful to contact them, and any other editors in similar situations, i.e. who may be saying with the project but abandoning certain specific content, how they might try to improve things to prevent others doing what they have, and retiring from certain subjects. John Carter (talk) 18:04, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
I actually see where you're coming from John but my first reaction was should we ask drunk drivers to set the alcohol limit? But then that's unfair - because I have areas I stay away from. We probably all do. Maybe we could ask a general question to the whole WP population with questions about reverts, huggle, POV warriors, rfa etc?--Cailil talk 18:20, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Pending the outcome of the case, it may be that the editors who brought the matter to ArbCom might be just as seriously in violation of policies and guidelines as the "defendants." I don't know, but the arbitrators are expecting to have a proposed decision soon. In any event, they might have some input regarding how to deal with "trench warfare" POV pushing, which they have basically accused the filers of. Depending on the outcome of the case, and what ArbCom decides, they might be able to provide some input on how to avoid or counter long term POV pushing by one side or another. John Carter (talk) 21:09, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, a similar chat with SirFozzie might be useful to (from an Arb's pov). He was involved with the original WP:TROUBLES which had its own trench-warfare issues--Cailil talk 16:43, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I very, very nearly left the 'pedia back in December because of an incident. I wrote up the case history of it so that if anyone ever held it against me in the future I could at least point them to the truth. It's here, if you want to see what happened. And yes, there was quite a bit of admin involvement in that, which seriously affected me. Pesky (talk) 04:27, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Review WP:SOCK?

Just for my information what do we want to review WP:SOCK for and why? And how does that effect editor retention--Cailil talk 01:49, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

If nobody has a reason for this - it shouldn't be an initiative--Cailil talk 17:50, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Ok considering that nobody's answered and there's been a lot of traffic here I'm removing this from the initiatives list--Cailil talk 15:39, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

User box suggestion

I made a user box and put it on page for suggestions. Feel free to improve it--Cailil talk 17:51, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Clarification of recent edits

Can the editors in question clarify the following recent edits to the "Reasons editors leave" section:

  • Buster7: atrophy—can you clarify what you believe is becoming weaker or smaller? (Another possibility that occurred to me: do you mean "apathy"?)
    • Atrophy---The desire to remain an active member of the WP community withers away. A natural transition of interest. One day you're in love...the next day, not so much. I didn't mean apathy but it also fits. The editor just doesn't care anymore. ```Buster Seven Talk 07:01, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
      • I see: do you believe there are underlying reasons for atrophy, or you just referring to the natural tendency to lose interest? (In the second case, as this section is not focusing on unaddressable issues, perhaps "atrophy" would be better discussed elsewhere?) isaacl (talk) 11:59, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
        • See Core reasons for good editor dissatisfaction related to content: (below). But if you don't think it belongs, remove it. ```Buster Seven Talk 15:11, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
          • Thanks for clarifying; it is indeed the core reasons that I think should be given attention, since this is how the resulting effect, atrophy or a loss of interest in Wikipedia, will be addressed. isaacl (talk) 15:24, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Amadscientist: A seemingly anti-social atmosphere one minute and a clique the next—I'm not sure I follow: separately, an anti-social atmosphere and a community of cliques seem like plausible reasons, but did you have something else in mind with the idea of one environment quickly shifting to another?
    • Perhaps a clumsy way of saying a perception of and anti social community that has cliques. Many new editors are hounded by some that this is not a social network when in reality one can easily see chat take place everywhere on a given topic and that sometimes cliques form that lead to ownership and other issues. Could use more clarification. A work in progress.--Amadscientist (talk) 07:16, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
      • Definitely there are groups of editors who act together to defend a line on particular articles - collective ownership as it were. There have also been tag teams who act in concert to push a particular POV, Arbcom did a number of blocks when they investigated the East European mailing list. The difficulty is in proving that canvassing, sometimes off wiki canvassing, is taking place. ϢereSpielChequers 08:10, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Also regarding the following addition to the "How you can help" section:

isaacl (talk) 03:42, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

    • Now this is more direct. Edit the page, edit an article and actively continue to work on Wikipedia yourself is INDEED a way to help editor retention by each of us continuing to edit and while doing so have patience when dealing with the changes others make.--Amadscientist (talk) 07:16, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

One hidden factor of being a blocked user

Per WereSpielChequers's suggestion thread closed and discussion continuing at MediaWiki_talk:Blockedtext#TLDR

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Of course we often need to block users for various reasons, and some considerable effort has gone into crafting the block templates and unblock templates (for all they could probably be improved). However what the majority of us don't see it that when you are blocked there are several screens of crud when you press "view source" - and even more hatted explanation. This is bad for a number of reasons. Firstly it is an unpleasant and unnecessary way to treat people, whether they are newbies or experienced editors. Secondly it damages the usability of the "view source" tab. Thirdly it is TLDR. Rich Farmbrough, 04:06, 9 July 2012 (UTC).

Gotta second that, I was testing some block-related things on myself a couple weeks ago and while indef-blocked (that was weird), went to go see what the notice was. It was really freaking long. There's gotta be a way to simplify it and still present the same information. Keilana|Parlez ici 06:50, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
If you can recall a particular phrase we can track down the mediawiki message and shift this discussion to its talkpage. I'm happy to help make such messages shorter but sometimes struggle to find the message. ϢereSpielChequers 08:13, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
100%. The current message is F off. The actual message is slow down. Experienced editors should have endorsed blocks. Penyulap ☏ 11:20, 9 Jul 2012 (UTC)
MediaWiki:Blockedtext is the text in question. I agree that it's way too long, but I can't see anything obvious to cut. Would it make sense to replace it with a row of buttons which take you to various sub-pages ("Why am I blocked?", "When will your block expire?", "How do I appeal this?"), or would that make things even more confusing? Mogism (talk) 12:06, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Agree this is very off-putting and TLDR. Perhaps we could move this page so it becomes the explanation of the block message that can be read if the user wants to see it. And replace what's there currently with a smaller simpler notice that the blocked user sees first?--Cailil talk 13:57, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
I've shortened it slightly, but I suggest we now stop this thread here and resume at MediaWiki_talk:Blockedtext#TLDR. ϢereSpielChequers 14:44, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Wikipedia:Help Project being spruced up

Wikimedia Foundation actually hired someone to clean up this project and he seems to be doing a good job. Check out the page, give feed back, see how these projects can work together. I deleted some text that was duplicative of what they are doing and encouraged people to go there. Also see Wikipedia:Help Project/Community fellowship which is leading that. CarolMooreDC 20:20, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Retired editors list

We now have a table of retired editors thanks to Kumioko. It is at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Retired editors list. It would probably be good to fill in notes before we attempt to contact editors. Some only have 1 or 2 edits, should we just remove those editors from the list? Others might be indef blocked or banned so we'll want to note that. Other notes could be the amount of edits they had or if they had been given special userrights. Others may only be semi-retired. We can talk about how to go about inviting users later, but I feel that invitations to editors with many contribs should be longer and personal, referencing specific beneficial contributions if we can. We should also inform them of the project so if they aren't planning on coming back they can offer advice on editor retention. Ryan Vesey Review me! 23:00, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

For those interested, my team did an experiment where we email active editors who had been gone for a year, three months, and one month. The full results are at Research:Necromancy, but the short answer is that one year folks were long gone, three months had a marginal success rate, and plenty of one month lapse editors returned, but it was equal to the number who returned on their own (thus making it difficult to infer causality). I would be very interested to hear the overall results from people emailing just a few other retired editors by hand with a personal note; my guess is that this would be much more effective. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 23:10, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Would you like us to keep any sort of stats on responses and the like? We should be updating the table and we can include email responses we get in the note. Ryan Vesey Review me! 23:14, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Great work! I've added that link to the front page under other areas, a new subsection. Feel free to reformat that. I would like all the subpages to be linked there, rather than here, and not sure how to organize it best yet, so be bold and do it for us all. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 23:33, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I think even just a table on a wiki page for tracking this works. That would be really great for comparing the various methods. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 23:55, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Glad to have you here Steven. Good to see that this project is attracting attention from all parts of the project, and it's only two days old. For this project, diversity of experience is very much an asset. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 00:30, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
A few things come to mind. One, I was actually thinking last night (hey, it happens once in a while) and it did seem to me that we would want some sort of possible standard questionnaire for editors who have retired and/or are contemplating retirement. Having one would help ensure that "all the basis get covered". Would anyone like to draw up a list of most common concerns we think retirees might have, and other significant matters, so we could try to ensure that we don't overlook anything?
Second, I am personally aware of at least one name on that list which is of a user who retired after a long career of pretty much SPA POV pushing and got caught. The editor displayed a truly remarkable devotion to the fringe theories of a completely non-notable religious group and to one academic who, rather belatedly, apparently sort of supported their ideas in a way. Another name on that list was a literally pure SPA POV pusher on the Falun Gong material who retired only after being indefinitely banned from his sole topic of interest. Because of instances like that, I had reservations about asking everyone who has retired about what caused them to leave. I am sure the first one I mentioned would say he left because some fanatical believers of other schools of religious thought, like notable ones, were fanatically obsessed with ensuring that the fringe theories which agreed with the non-notable group to which he was tied to "hide the truth of the lies of the Vatican-controlled academic world," or some such pap. Such editors might well welcome the chance to smear others, or might perhaps not be objective enough to realize that they themselves were more problematic than the others, who were often trying to ensure that policies and guidelines were being followed by those who they would malign. John Carter (talk) 15:01, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Agree with John, editor retention shouldn't just be anyone and everyone. We have restrictions, sanctions and bans in place for the benefit of the community--Cailil talk 15:23, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
Just to be clear, my first focus is on keeping the people that are already here, here. Next, it is to take people who had left of their own accord (ie: not under a block or sanction) but left in frustration, and bring them back. Next it is to get editors who might have left from admin frustration due to a single block or sanction, but are otherwise great editors, and get them back. On the issue of de jure banned users, that is typically ArbCom or AN concern, and is beyond the scope of what we can do here. I'm not insensitive that there may be a possibility that a few could come back, but realistically, most are banned for damn good reasons. I see lots of them at SPI, which is what I base my opinions on. Some can and have come back and I support that, but it is still a bit outside of the primary focus here. Another important part of what I personally would like to do is find ways for borderline situations to result in fewer blocks and more education and intervention. Some great editors can be a little testy, and some of us admins are more patient than others. Where I can, I want to get involved and act as a calming force to reduce drama, not point fingers and ratchet the drama up. But lists require discretion and should only include editors that meet a reasonable criteria. Mixing in de jure banned users into the regular list is not recommended and I would be against, as they aren't likely to be unbanned at ArbCom or AN anyway, and it adds a politically contentious element that too many will disagree with. We are here to unite, not divide, after all. This doesn't mean we ignore an ongoing situation if we think it is unfair, but we should focus on what can all agree with first when it comes to previously "lost" editors, and err on the conservative side when it comes to listing potential editors to bring back. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 16:26, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

In my opinion, two of the biggest things which will drive away the really intelligent / intellectually-mature people (whom we really need to keep) are injustice and things which violate some important principle, and are either ridiculed or brushed under the carpet. People with a very strong internal sense of principles will walk away in despair, disgust, or a combination of the two when they see a large (or important) facet of Wikpedia violating those. We should never, ever ridicule or belittle intelligent and intellectually mature people. If they feel something ('pedia-related, not article-related) really strongly, we should work on finding out exactly what it is, and exactly why they feel so strongly about it. Because, sure as eggs is eggs, if one really outstanding person feels that way about it, others will as well. Pesky (talk) 06:57, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm sorry if this has been stated, and I just missed it, but what is the source of this list? Is it simply people who have the retired template on their page? If so, it misses a lot (which I can't quantify) of people who have just dropped off without placing that template. If not, what is it? LadyofShalott 02:39, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi Lady, the list came from Kumioko, and it appears to be a list of all pages that have the {{retired}} template on them. I grabbed a bunch of data about each user on the list and added it to the table here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Retired editors list. This list was somewhat useful to review things like "swansong" edit summaries, but it only captures editors who bothered to put a retired tag up, so it misses many, many editors who simply left without "retiring." Also there are a lot of not useful entries in that list. So I also created a similar analysis table using the list of editors who submitted successful featured article nominations, which came from here: WP:WBFAN. This table is here: Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/FA editors list. Many of the FA contributors are still active editors, so this second list is useful to find "good" editors (good enough to take at least one article to FA) who have since stopped editing (the table contains the date of last edit). This table could be useful to find good editors who seem to have stopped editing in the recent past, and to try to convince them to keep editing, or at least provide us the opportunity to ask them why they have stopped. I think this second table is the most directly useful in achieving one of the stated goals of the project, in an immediate fashion. Zad68 03:15, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, Zad - your first sentence was the information I was seeking. :) I think the FA retired list is a good starting place, but I wonder why you limited it to FA specifically? How about GA writers? LadyofShalott 03:25, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Nevermind, I didn't read carefully enough, and was thinking it was a list of retired FA editors. I realize now it's just a list of FA editors in general. LadyofShalott 03:41, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Reasons Editors Leave

I have started Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Discovered reasons given for leaving Wikipedia. Many times when an editor leaves he gives his/her own eulogy. Contained in those eulogies are nuggets of gold, relating to this project, that can be mined for insight into the whys and wherefores of Editors leaving. I suggest they remain anonymous. It's not who said it that's important: it's what was said at the moment of departure. I realize there's a lot of whining and finger-pointing and weepy "Woe is Me" kind of stuff. But, maybe one of us will see something that lights a spark of intuition. It's worth a try. I'm sure we all remember some departing editors last words. Re-visit and lift the reasons they give.```Buster Seven Talk 01:56, 8 July 2012 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't think this is a good idea. First, it looks as though you've picked editors who had a beef over blocks or bans, in other words this doesn't look like a random sample. Secondly, it's against our principle of verifiability - we don't know who wrote these words or even, (and I am NOT saying you made these up), if anyone did. Sure, you copied accurately from real pages, but someone could come along and make up statements. Third, and I guess you could say a minor point that we could ignore or that I might be wrong about, is the copyright issue. I guess as they are gone they won't complain.
The main problem though is that it's a bad research model. Dougweller (talk) 15:52, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
Agree with Doug, and with all respect to your good faith efforts Buster, there are editors who are leaving wikipedia due to our problems with editor retention and there are editors who, for whatever reason, have been restricted, sanctioned, banned, blocked to prevent them from using wikipedia against its policies. Again castigating the ArbCom, sysop corp and/or our policies for doing the *right thing* and preventing wikipedia being abused is shooting ourselves in the head, not just the foot.
There's actual verifiable evidence by researchers on this topic and its pointless to ignore it in favour of the rants of disgruntled problematic users. As above, I have a page on Meta that is summarizing that research I'd welcome help from ppl finding research and any suggestions for editor retention they might have--Cailil talk 16:46, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
That's brilliant, a good detailed account which applies to many editors, although the reports show raw statistics, and do so with pretty much no detail, they don't show the typical reasons like that does at such a high resolution. Sure it could be labelled as a detailed example of why 5 or 15% or whatever of editors leaving over community disputes but it takes someone to look up the report to put the finishing touches on it. Another reason a lot of editors get disillusioned is when you make a reasonable, intelligent, properly thought out edit/proposal/observation, there are often other people who will stretch their small minds to breaking point to come up with negative comments, shrug, I'd say that's an issue to cover as well. Penyulap ☏ 19:13, 8 Jul 2012 (UTC)
(Tiwitter/nutshell) The sample is by definition valid because it outlines at the absolute minimum the reasons why the author would leave. The question of validity or referencing is moot, the only valid question is how many editors fall into that category, nothing else. Penyulap ☏ 19:48, 8 Jul 2012 (UTC)
  • We don't want to castigating anyone, but that shouldn't stop us from supporting those that do it right and encouraging others to follow suit. This includes both admin methods and editor tagging as well. Methods is one area where we have to use the carrot, not the stick. It isn't the first priority, but we do want admins and editors to discuss tagging and blocks and how to be less aggressive and more informative in how we "correct" others. We can't scream about this from the outside, we have to engage, encourage and support, else it is useless soapboxing. Admins are just part of the picture, as more people get mad over having their good faith edit tagged as "vandalism" than anything else I see. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 21:39, 8 July 2012 (UTC)
So....the challenge is to find eulogies that are not just sour grapes. The few I listed are the ones that I remember. Had I included their names all of you would surely remember them and the circumstances surrounding their departure. I am collecting them only as a place for possible inspiration and maybe an answer or two. As I remember more, I'll add them (as I hope other editors will). If some editors don't see value in this little appendage of this project, I guess they won't contribute. I know I have read many fine and eloquent eulogies over the years that are not sour grapes or administrative attacks. I just don't remember where they are. Like I said, the challenge is to find the ones that will give us insight into why a quality long-term editor closes up shop and leaves. Some of us like to explore studies and articles and reports and others like to hear it from the horses mouth. All have value. ```Buster Seven Talk 02:27, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
My concern apart from the soapbox issue is this: we should not be trying to retain banned users. 3 of 4 quotes on the page are from BANNED users - the other was indefinitely block for disruptive editing in an area now under ArbCom sanction (and is de facto banned). That page presents the remarks of editors who have gone so far down the road of disruption as to get site-banned as if they are good faith editors who left of their own accord - that's not helpful.
There's a difference between new good faith editors who (as Dennis points out above, and as the research shows) are being lost or pushed away early in their wiki-careers (due to over zealous reverting, including vandalism tagging or unexplained reverts etc), long term good faith editors who leave, and ppl who were thrown out. I don't have a problem with the horses mouth approach as long as we know where the comments come from, and as long as we don't simply make an indiscriminate list - that means excluding the commentary of users who are no longer welcome at wikipedia--Cailil talk 03:23, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm sorry if my above comment comes across as terse but the fact of the matter is that presenting users who have abused this project as ppl we should be trying to retain is quite frankly offensive. Especially to someone who spent a considerable amount of time (years) trying to help one of those banned users in that list only to see him ignore the advice and create enough problems for 2 RFARs (and continue to protest his complete innocence throughout, despite irrefutable evidence, wiki-counselling, warnings and eventually bans) and whose dramahz actually contributed to another editor leaving the site themselves--Cailil talk 03:44, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
I agree that we don't want to bring back banned users, and that we don't judge someone if they have had a few short term blocks either. One thing I've learned is that if you are here long enough, it is pretty easy to earn a block or two even when you are trying to do the right thing. Wikipedia has changed radically since I started in 2006. It is way more bureaucratic for starters, and some got lost because they didn't change as fast as the encyclopedia, and they didn't like the changes, even the ones that were needed. Sometimes, it is just a matter of time to get used to it, to accept it. This is part of the frustration by the process problem, which can cause a block or two, and someone to leave. I've taken a very long wikibreak myself, almost two years where I didn't log in and would just do small edits on little errors I found when reading here. That is what brought me back in, the love of doing that. I hesitated to come back in 2010, almost a little embarrassed after leaving pissed off but on good terms. No one seemed to notice me coming or going. So I understand the hesitation of coming back under relatively good circumstances, and know that a great editor who left due to a single block (likely earned on a technical level, like a 4RR but in good faith and bad form) will be hesitant as well. I'm not completely sure how to approach those editors yet. Hopefully, time will heal some old wounds. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 11:31, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
One thing that does jump out - not from this page alone, but in context - is the problem with accusations. Editors are routinely accused of being SPA/Sock/COI/Advert, when I have personal knowledge the company doesn't know who they are. Yet in other instances the assumption is the opposite. Editors can be too compromising and accommodating to someone I know has bad intentions. I bumped into this today[4], where even after the company disclosed and used the Talk page, a separate, established editor was accused of being a paid advocate. This paranoia doesn't just make us allergic to positive content though we are generally accepting of negative editorializing, it's also really toxic to the environment to be constantly accused of something - COI just being an example I would imagine of similar circumstances. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 22:06, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

New data mining resource: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Editor_Retention/FA_editors_list

I've posted a new resource for data mining: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Editor_Retention/FA_editors_list. This is the same analysis as the retired editors list, but pulling the list of usernames from WP:WBFAN, so the criterion for inclusion in this list is that the account nominated an article accepted as a featured article. This is better than the 'retired' list because the retired list didn't have any consideration for whether the community valued the editor's work highly, and also there could be many editors who used to be active but wandered away without giving notice of retiring. Zad68 17:03, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

New tools on the way

I dropped a note on Scottywong's talk page asking for help with a tool to allow us filter TW for "vandalism" tags in the recent contributions for the whole Wiki. This will make it much easier for us to determine who is using Twinkle for vandalism tags, and who is doing so improperly by then checking their other contribs. Several here have said they have an interest in helping new editors, and one of the best ways is by stopping the improper use of vandalism tags by politely re-educating the people doing it improperly. Having fewer improper biting tags == better retention, this we all agree on. This tool is listed as a long term project on his user page now, so it might take more than a few days to get, but being able to filter the Special:RecentChanges page by type of edit will really be a big help here. Once here, we will need to have folk regularly patrol and help correct the mistaken tagger. I've already left a note thanking him for putting this on his "to do" list, and suggest others that intend to use the tool drop a note of encouragement and to say thanks to SW for working on it. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 17:05, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

Top-heavy

One complaint I've heard a few times and haven't seen raised here yet, is the issue with Wikipedia becoming top-heavy. There are so many articles, so much vandalism, so much maintenance - people feel they don't get to write articles any more, when there's so much janitorial work to do. User:King4057 (EthicalWiki) 22:07, 10 July 2012 (UTC)

I never heard that complaint, usually is the other way around. Vandalism isn't as much of a problem as it was back in 2005/2006 as our edit policies advanced. Secret account 03:38, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

I'd say King4057 is exactly right. I was beginning to burn out just recently so I removed almost all of the maintenance/behind the scenes issues from my watchlist to allow me to focus on content for a while. Ryan Vesey Review me! 20:00, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Vandalism is better than that several years ago due to the bots, but in the last 3 months as admin, my actual content work has dropped by 90%. I expect it to pick up later, but I miss quietly gnoming around sometimes. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 23:26, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
As Admin my percentage of mainspace edits dropped under 50% for the first time. After I rescinded my tools I've been able to raise it to 54% of my total edits again.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 23:30, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
As someone who didn't do a hell of a lot of article work in the first place, I think my percentage right now is orbiting pretty close to 0, unless you count things like categorization. ;( John Carter (talk) 00:04, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

Personality clashes

Honestly, this sounds a little too New Age-y even for me, the proposer. But recently it has come to my attention elsewhere that certain editors have certain kinds of personalities which can, in normal people, quite possibly initiate the urge to throttle. One of us here has said elsewhere that a lot of wikipedia editors are of certain personality types as per the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator and others. I know I am an INTJ according to that test, by, as I remember, the smallest possible margin (one point) over the INTP. I expect there are other editors who have, for whatever reason, found themselves repeatedly engaged in contact with editors who can cause them to fantasize about that third person's fingers all suddenly breaking. And, of course, there are other broader personality characteristics which can be even more irritating. Any ideas out there how to address matters of this type? John Carter (talk) 20:36, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

"Focus on content, not on the contributor." If everyone followed that one rule, and never made any mention whatsoever about the person, most of these problems would go away. Unrealistic to think that'll happen. I'd have to take a step back and ask: Why are the two editors arguing in the first place? What could have been done to avoid the argument to start with? If the two editors were perfectly knowledgeable about all of the relevant Wikipedia policy and any past history of the topic they're arguing about, would the argument ever have started in the first place, or lasted as long as it did? Zad68 20:46, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
In general, true. In this particular case, however, and in one or two others in which I have dealt with over the years, some, admittedly few and probably well-intentioned editors, have a remarkable tendency to talk down to editors with whom they disagree in a way reminiscent of a grade school teacher talking to a misbehaving student, and, apparently, regularly refuses to direct issues of substantial content. One editor, who has engaged with an editor of this type, has said elsewhere he has retired from the content in which he dealt with the "teacher" because he, basically, found dealing with that editor to be a mental health risk, of a kind, for him. Yes, the "teacher" is a newer editor, and much less experienced than the person who has recently retired from the subject. But, in that case, the other person's personality, and presentation, clearly was seriously problematic. Again, not saying what should be done, if anything, just pointing out the problem exists once in a while. And, yeah, I can see how, in the longer term, dealing with such a civil pedant could wear most anyone down, possibly to the point of leaving a topic entirely. John Carter (talk) 21:03, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Equality in Enforcement?

Moved to [5].

Please do not add any material here.--Bbb23 (talk) 00:54, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

The decline is caused, at least in part, by increasing rejection of good-faith newcomer contributions

Hey folks! I'm the author of the recent blog post: Kids these days: the quality of new Wikipedia editors over time. I'm posting to direct you to some work I'm doing to identify the cause of the decline and test potential solutions. I have a writeup of a multi-method analysis of the English Wikipedia's newcomer retention issues. This write-up is a summary of a larger paper (PDF linked in summary) accepted to the scholarly journal, American Behavior Scientist. For your convenience, here is a super brief summary of the results:

  • The proportion of newcomers who are trying to be productive has not decreased since 2006.
  • The source of the decline is decreased retention of these good-faith newcomers.
  • When newcomers have their revisions reverted, they leave.
    • Newcomers are more likely to get reverted (for similar edits) today than in 2005.
  • The use of tools like Huggle appears to be exacerbating the revert problem.
    • Getting reverted by a Huggle substantially increases the probability that a good-faith newcomer will leave quickly.
  • Young editors (post newcomers, but pre Wikipedian) used to be able to contribute to policies and guidelines, but not anymore.
    • Everyone is writing essays now, but essays are not enforceable.

I'm excited about this WikiProject and hope to work with you guys to try make a dent in the declining detention. --EpochFail(talk|work) 19:56, 6 July 2012 (UTC)

One other thing, not mentioned above, also comes to mind. For most of the content newer editors would be interested in developing, there already exists a substantial, generally well sourced article, and, possibly, substantial prior discussion regarding the material they want to add, particularly if it isn't news-related. And, yes, with the sometimes incredible amount of archived discussion on some of these most popular pages, it can be really difficult to see if what you want to add has already been dsicussed. I have a feeling that many editors, when they see, effectively, that other editors are saying "Yeah, we old hands already talked about that, and found it wasn't worth including, at least to the weight that you want," will feel, understandably, somewhat offended and leave on that basis. Having said that, however, I'm not sure how to deal with instances of that sort of problem. John Carter (talk) 20:08, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
These are all good points but how can we use them to change the status quo? Can anyone come up with viable proposals which have a chance of being implemented? And is anyone interested in pushing them through? --Ipigott (talk) 20:33, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
I think the suggestion that is hidden in the section above this one might solve a portion of this problem. The Teahouse is also made to solve that very issue. Ryan Vesey Review me! 20:39, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
@Ryan Vesey: I have looked at the Wikipedia:Contribution Team project. It looks to me as if it is currently doing a good job in trying to make new editors feel more welcome. The Editor Retention project, on the other hand, it more focused on keeping people who are already contributors but who are frustrated by the often hostile treatment they receive. Maybe you could present the aims of this project to the Contribution Team and investigate how we can work together? --Ipigott (talk) 20:57, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
While the Contribution Team still has a few new members, it appears to be defunct. I just pointed it out because some of the ideas may be useful. I also disagree with any notion that this project should focus on established contributors. I am of the opinion that increasing retention of new users may be our best shot. I've also talked to Dennis, and I've got another user creating a table from the list of editors who placed {{retired}} on their talk pages so we can contact them to ask them if they are interested in rejoining the project and/or if they have an idea to fix whatever problem caused them to leave. Sorry if I'm going off on a bit of a tangent here. Ryan Vesey Review me! 21:16, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
Just butting in here, while I see where you're coming from Ryan re: not focussing solely on established editors I'd echo Ipigott's suggestion, in a slightly different way. In order to help long term retention one thing this project could do is ask users who are reducing their time on WP why so, and what would help restore them to the site (you're unlikely to see much return for your efforts in looking fro responses from those who have already left for good). The reason for this is twofold:
1) if we figure out how to help editors who know the ropes, procedures and policies we can educate new editors in ways that a) help them integrate into WP's community and b) help them stick with it for years (as some of us have). There's no point in retaining new editors for months only to see them catch the same rot & leave.
2) John makes a very good point above. We have nearly 4 million articles written today - WP is a vastly different experience now as to 2006. There are fewer new articles to write. There are an increasing number of featured articles that require a standard of writing and research to make positive & constructive contributions to. We need not only to be nice to new editors but to equip them with an understanding of how to do good research and what pitfalls to avoid.
Many of us on site are education and higher education professionals in various fields. There is a pool of knowledge on how to help ppl learn to research and there are ppl with the skills to deliver that here. Also as Epochfail points out if there are issues with widely used tools (like Huggle or Twinkle etc) we should look at this, get the evidence, and open an RFC on disabling these features in order to retain new good faith users--Cailil talk 21:38, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
One small point. There are still a huge number of articles out there which haven't yet been created. I can think of the mind-boggling number of small, but minimally notable, Christian denominations, groups, religious orders, churches, and what all out there - I know of at least several thousand we don't yet have articles on. However, in a lot of cases, it can be harder to find RS on some of these smaller topics, so editors, including some older ones, try to add the material on these less-notable topics to already extant articles, where the material often won't meet WEIGHT requirements. When it gets removed there, they might leave. Wikipedia:WikiProject Missing encyclopedic articles might be a good place to start listings of some of these missing articles, and I am still trying to get together a list of the encyclopedias reviewed by journals on the JSTOR site. When that gets done, we might be able to have some of the WikiProjects on major topics, like for instance Christianity, have lists of articles which are apparently notable enough, and reference works which have material on them to help such articles. That might help a few editors stay around. But, for others, who, for instance, think Elvis killed Kennedy as per some book or other and want it prominently placed in those two biographies, those editors can, sometimes, seem reasonable, but are probably not long to stay here anyway. John Carter (talk) 21:55, 6 July 2012 (UTC)
They're great suggestions John - I'll see if I can get a convo or two started at the wikiprojects I'm involved in about notable but unwritten articles--Cailil talk 15:10, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
We've (WMF researchers) been studying ways to improve the effects of Huggle reverts. See Wikipedia:UWTEST, meta:Research:Warning_Templates_in_Huggle and the ICWSM publication. I really think these are stopgap approaches though. I want to figure out how to reverse the trend and fixing warning messages appears to make marginal improvments at best. I don't think that shutting down Huggle is a good option due to the massive efficiency and effectiveness of the tool at combating vandalism. Instead, I'd like to learn from huggle's efficiency for using human judgement to identify and remove vandalism by building a similar system (code name: snuggle) that uses human judgement to identify and support good new (or old) contributors. I hope to have more on that soon. --EpochFail(talk|work) 13:39, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
In my view, some of the largest potential improvements in terms of the effects of reverts, will come from anything we can do to educate new editors before they make those edits, or while they're making those edits, not after. Improvements to the article editing interface, automated testing for potential warning signs in an article and giving users real time feedback, those are things that matter. "Hey, it looks like may not have included any references. That could be a problem that could lead your article to eventually be deleted, want some help with that?" To draw an analogy, consider the difference between, as I type message, an interface that tells me that I forgot to leave an edit summary, and one that, an hour later, removes my comment and leaves a note on my talk page. Is there really any question which is friendlier? Good-faith edits that are problems from our point of view can be reduced by education, and everything we do to help that situation helps reduce the number of good-faith edits we reject. --j⚛e deckertalk 15:58, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
One billion percent agree. Zad68 16:19, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
@John Carter, one of the studies I cite in the paper is one of my own from last summer that supports your intuition about newbies editing increasingly complete articles and getting reverted. meta:Research:Newbie_reverts_and_article_length --EpochFail(talk|work) 13:22, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Bingo, I believe this is one of the top areas we need to address: What do we do with 'finished' articles, that probably should not be being edited that much any more? I think the answer is to identify FA articles as such and to direct editing efforts away from them and toward areas that still need work. Zad68 13:28, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

The report makes an incorrect assumption, a very common one, that Assume Good Faith is policy, it's not policy.

This study has many important implications for community and Wikimedia Foundation efforts to engage and retain new editors. To begin, it reasserts the centrality of one fundamental policy on the project, “Assume good faith.”

Reminds me of the quote from hitch-hikers guide on my talkpage,

It is very easy to be blinded to the essential failure of Wikipedia by the sense of achievement you get from getting it to work at all. In other words - and this is the rock solid principle on which the whole of wikipedia's success is founded - its fundamental design flaws are completely hidden by its superficial design flaws. Penyulap ☏ 07:35, 7 Jul 2012 (UTC)

That's what you get for reading the pre-print ;). I should have cautioned about that more carefully. I edited that out when I caught it as I was making the HTML summary. There's a strange bit of legal nuance around what I do and don't get to publish from my journal submissions. It seems safer to maintain the separate summary than to continue to edit my pre-print so the HTML version will be more up-to-date. --EpochFail(talk|work) 13:22, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Reminds me of "Everything has already been Invented", an 1899 quote by the Patent Office Commissioner. ```Buster Seven Talk 13:16, 7 July 2012 (UTC)


  • The biggest change since 2006 for Newbies is that a newbie who added an unsourced fact then was more likely to see it {{fact}} tagged and less likely to simply see it reverted as unsourced. I can see that this would be offputting for new editors, but it is only one stage of the process, we are losing not just newbies but editors who only last a few months. The community has become something of a clique with relatively few newbies making it into the core of active editors. These are in my view two distinct and separate problems. We need a better way to handle newbies who add unsourced content, and we probably need some research to establish how often that unsourced content is typically True, False or unverifiable by Google. If its mostly True then we need a program to encourage those who "revert unsourced" to only do so for genuinely contentious stuff. If its mostly False then that just boosts the case to implement Flagged revisions and process the vandalism more effectively and efficiently. If its pretty mixed then we need a more complex solution. As for how we make the community less cliquey, I'm not sure, though it can't help that those of us who started editing after 2006 are still a minority of the admin cadre. I might start a new thread lower down about retention of those who get past that early stage. ϢereSpielChequers 13:58, 7 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Again that's a good idea Ryan but thta wont help on FAs and GAs (or high profile articles that were under probation like Sarah Palin or Barrak Obama) - the standard for drive-by editing is getting higher (that's not inherently a bad thing) we shouldn't be dumbing down policy or letting article content slip on the off chance that that IP will open an account. Another option would be to put up an info box for all IPs on the "Dos and Don'ts" and a prominent create an account button--Cailil talk 15:17, 7 July 2012 (UTC)

Gendergap

Moved to [6].

Please do not add any material here.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:01, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Administrator retention

Moved to [7].

Please do not add any material here.--Bbb23 (talk) 01:10, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Userpage templates

Red: % of editors who remain active after 1 year. The "Shit Slide" starts around 2006. Blue: # of active editors.

The assertion in the video linked above is that user-talk templates are viewed as lifeless system messages. I looked over my own early user talk comments, and there was a remarkable lack of templates. Could it be that I wouldn't have stayed as long had I gotten them?

I wonder if our current arsenal of warning templates should simply be paired down based on some rule that could be applied consistently. Perhaps only templates that deal with actions that are generally bad-faith or COI should be kept around, while everything else should be handled with personal messages. Or maybe some clues could be gained by a comparison with what the arsenal looked like in mid-2006. Cutting down on available templates would, of course, force bots and user-assisted tools (Huggle/Twinkle) to place less of them.

I'd even cut down or eliminate welcome templates. They're impersonal and not at all welcoming, if you ask me.

On a totally converse note, I was wondering if maybe the statistic is flawed (this should be in a separate section but I didn't want to post two sections here at the same time). I'm not good with statistics and these figures are based on a visual inspection of the graphic above, but:

  • 35% of 10,000 stayed (one year) in May 2005 = 3500
  • 15% of 40,000 stayed (one year) in Jan 2008 = 6000

When Wikipedia started, one would have needed to be fairly predisposed to getting involved long-term in order to start editing actively. As something becomes a household name, it'll garner an influx of people who are less serious about it. An increase in long-term editors, but a decrease in the percentage of active editors who end up staying long-term, is not alarming in my mind, and should actually have been expected -- we've got so many new editors compared with just a few years ago that a study of any falling percents doesn't seem useful. Unless I'm wrong, which is possible. Equazcion (talk) 06:08, 11 Jul 2012 (UTC)

My 2c: the red dive is spectacular but as you say expected; 2006 is when Wikipedia stopped being "just for nerds" and started to attract casual editors who are less likely to stay as long. The blue line, though, is the absolute figure of "accounts that have edited that month", and is clearly on a straight downward trend since 2007. Sure, on the current trend it won't hit zero for years, but at some point the editor-to-article ratio will become unmanageable (since the number of articles keeps rising) and the quality of Wikipedia will get more and more full of errors and vandalism, which will further discourage those editors who remain and make the trend worse. Mogism (talk) 20:22, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
If you watch the video linked above, the WMF seems to be deeply concerned with the red (assigning it the "Shit Slide" nickname), while barely about the blue. Equazcion (talk) 05:36, 12 Jul 2012 (UTC)
I should've clarified that in the two figures above, "stayed" refers to percentages of active editors who remained active for at least one year. I amended them to clarify above. Again I could be wrong and may have missed something, but at least some of this editor retention alarm seems centered around this statistic or similar ones? I'm not sure if there's much to be concerned over here, though doing what we can to retain editors can't be a bad thing anyway. Equazcion (talk) 05:48, 12 Jul 2012 (UTC)
There was some interesting research on welcomes last year, one project was analysing them from a theoretical basis and said they were poorly designed. The other was analysing them by effectiveness and found that overall people are more likely to stay if you welcome them. There is of course a huge opportunity to analyse welcomes by effectiveness and recommend designs that work well, bu I'm not sure if anyone is doing that yet. As for the warning templates, there is a big RFC at present on a new generation of shorter templates. ϢereSpielChequers 16:58, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Pact

To facilitate the need for more structure, and address the needs of the Project, I have started a formal Pact that will outline our goals and methods. This is only a draft and every member has a full stake in the document, and an equal share in the structure itself, so I would recommend discussing it on the actual talk page for the Pact itself. The Project is growing so amazingly fast, that I think a Pact is needed to prevent confusion and facilitate better coordination. I would ask that every single Member of the Project review this and voice an opinion and offer ideas on the talk page there, so we may formalize the Pact and move forward. I have only provided my ideas, based on what I see is the need and desires, but this is your project so it is important that everyone participate at some level. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 13:39, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I think a number of suggestions here are directed at symptoms and not the underlying diseases. Dissatisfaction with the process of appealing blocks, ugly edit notices and cliques/tag teams are not the real problems, they are distant secondary and tertiary symptoms. The real problems (or at least one set of them, there are others I'll address in other threads) that the good, experienced editors whom we want to keep face are:

  • An unmet need for recognition
  • Frustration with seeing good work ruined
  • Exhaustion/exasperation at having to continuously defend completed work

Wikipedia work falls squarely within a kind of work that's the subject of a recent area of research regarding self-directed motivation. Author Daniel Pink wrote an interesting book Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us. (I'm quoting from here:) "Pink identifies three key motivators:

  • autonomy (self-directed work),
  • mastery (getting better at stuff), and
  • purpose (serving a greater vision)."

Good editors enjoy (at least initially) contributing to Wikipedia, because Wikipedia provides an environment where all three of these key intrinsic motivators are strong. What happens is over time, all three of these motivators get eroded:

  • POV pushers, vandals and inexperienced editors that don't understand all the rules behind proper sourcing, Wiki-formatting to produce an attractive article, etc. damage the good work the good editors have completed, requiring the good editors to baby-sit their completed articles and defend them against a never-ending stream of bad editors. They can no longer decide for themselves what they would like to work on because they have to spend their time defending completed work, so the self-directed work motivator evaporates
  • After an experienced editor has learned all the policy and technical rules required to produce good content, the mastery motivator dries up to some degree. The mastery motivator evolves into teaching less-experienced editors the ropes, or mastering new content or project areas. (I think this is the least worrying of these three problem areas.)
  • Where the Wikipedia culture is the weakest is keeping the purpose motivator strong. When good editors see their good work deteriorate, they lose the sense of purpose. (From the same website:) "Teresa M. Amabile and Steven J. Kramer found that the # 1 motivator for the employees was progress – the feeling that they were moving forward and achieving a greater goal." After seeing good work evaporate, the question in the mind of good editors becomes, "I spent all that time getting this interesting article to FA, and now look what happened to it. What was the point of all that work?"

Even though Pink argues against it, I believe mutual support and recognition is an important part of a good editor's motivation for staying with the project. Amabile and Kramer hint at it: "On days when workers have the sense they’re making headway in their jobs, or when they receive support that helps them overcome obstacles, their emotions are most positive and their drive to succeed is at its peak. On days when they feel they are spinning their wheels or encountering roadblocks to meaningful accomplishment, their moods and motivation are lowest." This is the reason why Wikipedia cliques form, and why they work: They are groups of like-minded, mutually-supporting editors that defend each other and keep each other motivated. A good editor that doesn't have support will eventually feel frustrated and leave.

Things we can do to address these problems:

  • Wikipedia needs to recognize and protect "completed" articles and good content
  • Wikipedia needs to recognize and reward good editors in a more official way than barnstars (can eventually lead to cliques) and deciding for one's self to award one's self a GA or FA star on one's User page
  • Wikipedia needs to be set up to direct new and inexperienced editors away from areas where they will 1) experience frustration at trying to change completed work, 2) frustrate veteran good editors who caused that good completed work, and 3) worsen the encyclopedia by changing good, completed work.

I think instead of looking at the "retired" list, we should do research into who were the main contributors to FA articles who have since left the project. (There is an entirely separate area having to do with serious technical limitations of the editing interface itself, deriving from the underlying way that content and metadata are stored, but that's an entirely separate area we probably can't address here.)
Zad68 14:33, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

I think this is a great contribution Zad. A lot of ppl class themselves "content editors" - editors with a long litany of FAs and GAs but who feel unrecognized and badly treated by the site (lets leave a side the fact that the editors I'm referring to have appalling manners and don't 'play well with others' for the moment). Speculating on it I'd say they feel they should have power based on their content contributions - I don't see a way to do this but think we should be rewarding excellence in research and writing, and would like to see some reward for editors with a history of featured content writing.
Personally I was one of a few ppl who struggled to get Feminism to GA and I can tell you, hand on heart, that that was harder, and took longer, than writing a PhD (due to POV, pointy,disruption and vandal issues), the new editors issues you list were there but to a lesser extent. Furthermore maintain quality at a GA or FA is a struggle and we need to do something to help keep good content (the old adage that the better version "is in the article history" doesn't fly for anyone) without forgetting WP:OWN. I'd endorse a move to at least prevent disimprovment on FAs and GAs and would love to see that discussion start--Cailil talk 15:33, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
You don't award yourself a GA, FA or even a DYK, those have awarded to you by others. If you've earned them you decide whether you want to display the resulting bling on your userpage. That said, it would be a good idea to compare retention rates for FA writers, Admins and various other groups of experienced editors. I suspect those who've earned FAs will have a fairly good retention rate. I know our retention rate amongst admins is very high, hence the current situation where a wikigeration who became admins in 2004-2007 still supply most of our admins, but much of the community is from newer WikiGenerations. This WikiGeneration gap is bound to cause resentment and a feeling that the admins are a clique apart from the current editors. I'm fairly sure that the problems at RFA and the drought we've had since early 2008 are a significant cause of our retention problems amongst those who have a few thousand edits but then feel there is a glass ceiling above them. RFA problems may not be the only cause of our retention problems, but I'm pretty sure they are a significant cause amongst those who have over 3,000 edits. There is an unmet need for recognition amongst our volunteers, and in the days when RFA was appointing a new admin a day it was one of the roles that it performed. As for defending one's work, eventually I hope we will move to the flagged revisions system in use on DEE wiki and some others. Until then or we find some other way to improve our systems, we just have to accept that some vandalism will get past recent changes and has to be dealt with later. ϢereSpielChequers 19:03, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
The List of every editor with a successful FA nomination is easy enough to find. At a glance, it doesn't seem to bear your contention out - aside from the hardcore clique in the top 10 (who are in the top 10 precisely because they've been here a long time and thus racked up a lot of work), the list includes some of Wikipedia's most notable retirees and vanishees, and a dip-sample of the lower ranks suggests that around half have either vanished altogether, or are only making occasional once-a-month edits. Mogism (talk) 19:20, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
FWIW, I personally know of at least one of those listed as an FA recipient whose article, was, basically, POV pushing crap. I, to my own discredit, even supported it for FA at the time, because I was in hindsight stupid enough to not check the material about a then-newly releasaed book out - if I had done so, I would have known it for the fringe theory it was described as in the press. It has since been demoted, as a lot of FAs have been, because of the mistakes and disproportional weight weren't found the first time, yes, by people like me, but were caught later by others. Having said that, I as an individual certainly wouldn't mind seeing editors who have a very specific, limited range of interests going into semi-retirement, if their interests are so clearly limited. Actually, it was more or less with people like that in mind that I proposed the "reunions" of older editors in the first place. I would think that they would be among the most motivated to update FAs and former FAs that they got to that level, particularly thinking of articles on subjects like countries which unfortunately require frequent updating. John Carter (talk) 20:06, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
Thank you Mogism! I am using the WP:WBFAN list to create the same sort of analysis table I produced at Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Retired editors list, it's running right now. John, I think (hopefully) you ran into the exception there with the FA article that was crap, and that in general our process for identifying quality work as FA much more often is right than wrong. Once I have the results of the FA producers, we can see which ones are still editing, and should be able to fairly easily identify which FA contributors are no longer editing. Then we can both ask those editors why they aren't editing any more, and also possibly encourage them to return. Zad68 15:26, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
Data pull complete, the FA editor list can now be found here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Editor_Retention/FA_editors_list. Zad68 17:07, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
@Mogism. If as many as half of FA writers are still around then I'm surprised. When I said "I suspect those who've earned FAs will have a fairly good retention rate." I wasn't thinking it might be as high as that. By contrast only about a third of all admins are still admins and active - though I suppose there are also a few former admins who are still active. Perhaps where we differ is in our expectations re the normal wiki career, my understanding was that most active editors were only active for a year or two. If that's the case then our admins and FA writers both have much lower attrition rates. Editors with over 100,000 edits are even less likely to leave, and our dozen most active editors are all still with us - the contrast between the upper and lower parts of this list is salutary (blue linked editors are still active). I suppose the moral is that we need to know the base rate for attrition before we can really work out what leads to people going or staying. ϢereSpielChequers 10:54, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
  • This is good analysis by Zad. One of his recommendations: Wikipedia needs to recognize and protect "completed" articles and good content. Yes. In addition, Wikipedia needs to recognize and protect good content contributors, by at least not banning any of them (of course I am not talking about trolls who create little but the trouble). One of the most spectacular failures of wikipedia "collaborative" model is the situation when someone comes to edit in a good faith, spends a lot of his time, has good knowledge of the subject and good editing skills, creates 140 articles [8], but ultimately banned (simply because he edited "difficult" subjects and did not have infinite patience), comes back to create more good content [9], but banned again, and so on [10], and so on. My very best wishes (talk) 16:47, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Project teams created

I reviewed all the current discussion so far, and based on the areas in which people seemed to be most interested in contributing, I created project teams and assigned team members and teams leads, the teams are here: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Editor_Retention#Project_teams. Please review the lists and make any adjustments needed. I'm hoping to start converting the discussion into action starting soon, with goals and deadlines, to make sure we are effective as a project. Would like to hear your feedback. Zad68 19:19, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

Very bold, but thank you very much. To be honest, I was beginning to get a bit overwhelmed by the growth of the project. The teams will allow me to focus on the issue that I'm most interested in (retaining new editors). Will we be creating subpages for each team? Ryan Vesey Review me! 19:58, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Glad it's appreciated. Yes, I'm expecting that the team leads will first contact their teams and make any adjustments to things like personnel, team description, etc. as necessary. Once that is settled we can create project team pages. I'm also going to create a general project management page so that the teams can stay co-ordinated, we can track progress toward goal dates we set for ourselves, etc. I'd like this to be a productive project that produces a good, measurable result for Wikipedia within a defined amount of time, and not be largely a place where general grievances are aired without result. Zad68 20:28, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm probably going to create Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Retain new editors for the time being. It can be moved wherever we need it later on, but it would be nice to start up a page where discussion can be centralized. Ryan Vesey Review me! 21:11, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
File:Wizardofozcomic.jpg...Well done. I'd stay and chat but I think I hear a new editor in a quandry.!!! ```Buster Seven Talk 20:56, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Hey buster, I had to colon out your comic, it wasn't a free image. Ryan Vesey Review me! 21:11, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
No prob. I told Zad he was a Wizard. ```Buster Seven Talk 21:24, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
Still loving my promotion to Wizard! LOL... Zad68 03:06, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

That was indeed bold, which I encourage but I have to admit it caught me off guard. I do think your timing is perfect for creating the subprojects and that is the prod we all needed to move forward, and we should now work to get them staffed. Let me be a little less bold with some modifications, if I can. Because I'm not in charge here, these are just my opinions and I welcome input from others.

First, we need to make sure that the people themselves are interested in being in that particular subproject, perhaps by invitation to start it. I would also suggest that any team leader by decided by the group themselves, as I think that the choosing of leaders should be organically chosen by those participating and not from the outside. No "rules" are needed for picking leaders, majority of active people in that subgroup decide, simple stuff.

Next, I would have to decline leading any subproject or focusing only on one project just yet, as I think I would be better to try to help all the projects in a purely support role and in promoting the project, which is what I do best. As I'm trying to be careful to not force my ideas, I would wait until groups form then join, and likely choose to not be a leader in a subproject.

I do not want a single leader here, and I'm pretty hardheaded about that fact. We don't want to become the bureaucracy we are trying to tame. A "Council of Editors" is better than single leader anyway, rotated frequently, who job is to determine consensus, not dictate it, to help break impasses and keep the peace as fellow editors whom we have asked to serve as janitors. The only "power" granted is the respect they earn by their deeds and words, and they can not unilaterally force actions on the project. They serve at the pleasure of the members. I feel very strongly that it should be no less than 50% non-admins. In short, they are friends we choose to help us by taking care of the stuff that isn't in a subgroup, such as maintaining the main page, settling disputes, etc. and sometimes being the voice of the project (at our request) in other venues. 4 people should be fine for now, and likely an even number always, decided by some very simple, easy and fair method of voting. The powers are virtually none, so it shouldn't be a big deal.

I would also want to express an opinion that I think that any "team leader" should considered "The first among equals", not "above the others", and serves as leader at the pleasure of those within the group itself, which may choose to change that leader at any time by consensus. I rather like the name "coordinator" better than "leader", for what it is worth, and suggest input from others on the issue.

What we want to avoid is hierarchy, bureaucracy and titles here. Some of the problems we are dealing with are because Wikipedia can be top heavy, and we can't fix a top heavy problem with a top heavy project. Everyone, including me, has the same voice and should work in the areas they are most interested in, and have the freedom to choose those that coordinate the process.

But with that in mind, I think we should open it up and get input from others, see if these people are interested in these groups, or want to create a different structure or subgroup, or have other ideas. Again, the timing is right, lets hammer out some details. These are just my quick ideas, my opinions. I welcome others. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 21:39, 11 July 2012 (UTC)

On that note, the leader shouldn't be an editor who dictates what the project does and doesn't do. In my opinion, the leader would be the person who gets the boring work. Informing other editors about an issue, making sure all of the team members are notified, things like that. Ryan Vesey Review me! 21:43, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
  • This is why the individual "coordinators" are the first among equals, those willing to coordinate the efforts of others, but no higher than. I agree with you, but still prefer my name ;) Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 22:12, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I think if you asked Kirill or Roger over at MILHIST about their status as "coordinators" there, they might agree that the coordinator gets the grunt work. I tried being lead coordinator of WPX for a while, and, basically, "grunt work" pretty much described that job too. John Carter (talk) 22:39, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
  • This is another reason that "leadership" should be decided within each subgroup, and often ends up with the guy that has the most time or doesn't mind the grunt work. Normally I don't, but I've too many irons in the fire dealing with the project as a whole right now. Maybe after things settle a bit. And I don't want people to think they can only participate in ONE subgroup, because there are no rules. Even if they have one primary area of interest, we want people to do what they love in all areas. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 23:24, 11 July 2012 (UTC)
I'm not in favour of these project teams, or project leaders. By all means, editors can add their names to specific "areas of interest," but it would be good to avoid the team/leader (or even coordinator) vocabulary. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:14, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
Great! I was Bold, and now I see we're into Revert (a little) and Discuss--perfect. I often find it's easier to work on modifying or improving something that's already there, as opposed to trying to come up with something from scratch. I was hoping that by putting together some teams, that would be the catalyst for exactly the kind of discussion we're having now.

Just to be clear, I didn't throw together the teams haphazardly. I based them on the contributions people had already made to the project pages, and any previous background they might already have in this area. If I really got it wrong for someone, I'd expect that person to move themselves to the area they'd really like to work on, in the role they'd like, just as you did yourself, Dennis. And I'm not expecting people to be on only one team--I assigned myself to two.

Regarding "team lead" vs. "co-ordinator," honestly it doesn't matter much to me which term is used. I picked the term "team lead" because that's a very familiar term to me from my work experience. What Dennis and John and Ryan are describing as the responsibilities of the role are exactly in line with my expectations--the role involves initiating communication and discussion, occasional gentle prodding to make sure progress is made, getting discussion back on track when it goes off, determining consensus when a decision is needed, co-ordinating with the other teams, making sure the work done is in line with the goals and any set deadlines, etc. I am not in any way sayng this role will have anything like final veto power over decisions or will get to tell everyone else what to do. If we'd like to use "co-ordinator" that's fine with me. Heck, I didn't even sign myself up to be one, so what does it matter to me? :)

On that note, Dennis, I'm sad to see that you're not interested in the role, or at least don't have time. You actually put yourself back as "Unassigned"... I figured you'd be interested in that role as you were the initiator of this project in the first place, and based on your contributions here on this Talk page, you seemed to be most interested in the "Reform templates, warnings and sanctions" area. So whom might you suggest we hit up for the role? Someone has to at least initiate the discussion about that.

I know we "want to avoid is hierarchy, bureaucracy and titles" but at the same time we do need some structure and organization. I don't think you'd need to point very far to find well-intentioned Wikiprojects that fell apart and didn't have any impact. We have the potential here to make a very positive difference, and I'm very excited because we have the ability to make a very objective measure of our positive impact (or lack thereof). To make this happen will require some organization. So, more than no structure, but not a lot, how does that sound? Zad68 03:43, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
SlimVirgin re: "I'm not in favour of these project teams, or project leaders ... avoid the team/leader (or even coordinator) vocabulary." Is your objection to the term or the role itself? If it is the role itself you are not in favor of, what is the advantage of not having the role? What risks to the productivity of the project would we introduce by not having the role? Zad68 03:46, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
I think anything that appears to be top-down will not work. What we need are groups of people who identify the problems, then go out into the project to try to avoid causing them (that is number one), and to ameliorate them when we see others causing them. And this is a good page to raise issues, seek advice, and to discuss inconsistencies in perception, etc. But the idea of "teams" and "leaders" is instantly off-putting, to me anyway and I suspect others. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:54, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
It depends on what the objective is: if it is to generate a lot of ideas that individual editors can pick up and follow through on their own, without focusing effort on specific ideas and without co-ordinating tasks so they do not run counter to each other, then a more loose structure will do (and a lot of Wikipedia's work is done this way, illustrating its viability). Having a bit more co-ordination, however, can enable the selection of certain ideas to concentrate on, to gain maximum benefit from editors' time, and to implement larger scale initiatives that require co-ordinated actions from multiple editors. isaacl (talk) 04:39, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
If you look through the lists of reasons people leave, they are inconsistent, which reflects the reality of editors with different priorities and experiences. For example, some editors get annoyed by others appearing to OWN, but other editors (usually the writers who are being accused of OWN) get annoyed because they're expected to agree that high-quality material should not be defended. These are interesting and important issues to discuss, to see whether we can differentiate the concerns and smooth over inconsistencies. Setting up teams and team leaders, without having those discussions, risks them moving in to take one "side." For example, the "new editor retention team" might suggest things that will cause yet more established editors to leave. SlimVirgin (talk) 04:54, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
While I do agree that it might be premature to set up teams to work on areas before a bit more work is done to try to determine the most effective subjects for study, the concern about failing to adequately balance the various reasons listed isn't specific to the formation of teams. I think it may actually be a bigger problem if editors are left to their own devices to evaluate which initiatives may be most effective, rather than trying to discuss it within a group of other editors who have a similar drive to work out potential actions to take in a specific area. Since anyone is free to contribute to any discussion, I don't think having designated discussion topics will limit conversation. Perhaps it is unnecessary to have specific lists of editors associated with each topic; I do think though that designating a point person for a given topic to help guide and stimulate discussion is useful. isaacl (talk) 06:55, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
(EC):I think the new editor retention team will focus on editors that don't know what they are doing. Orienting new editors on how to deal, respectfully, with established editors will most likely be a primary goal. I can't think of anything that would conflict with or upset established editors to the point of leaving WP. Someone needs to lead the way. Or...we can leave it up to consensus. We all know how problematic that can be. I favor the teams--with a co-ordinator or facilitator. They can put their heads together and make sure we are all headed in the same direction. ```Buster Seven Talk 07:03, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
I read and I understand the reservations Cindy and SlimVirgin and others are voicing regarding a "team" structure. I also see that John and Ryan and Isaacl and others support a team-style structure. So, can't we do both? Those people who want to discuss ideas, find something that appeals to them, and then go and act on that idea individually can do that. Those who would rather work more closely with others and focus with them on one area can do that. Cindy and SlimVirgin, how can we "advertise" that this project is doing it both ways, so that those who are interested in the goals of the project, and who want to contribute toward the goal as individuals, can see when they visit the project page that there is room for that? We'll make sure that those who are interested in contributing in a team style can see that is available as well. I'm sorry if my bold move to set up teams was off-putting to those who are very uncomfortable with that style, it was not my intent to drive anybody away (from the retention project... what irony!). Zad68 20:25, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

I support having designated persons to guide and co-ordinate discussion and actions, as I believe this has the best chance of providing effective results. Having a list of names for a given area is useful for fostering a sense of purpose and community in contributors. While this is valuable, it is of lesser concern to me, since anyone can at any time choose to help out in any area, regardless of who's listed in a team. isaacl (talk) 21:53, 12 July 2012 (UTC)

  • Over the past year, I've often thought of leaving Wikipedia or WikiProjects due to actions by WMF or editors that forego the collaborative process, much likened to a bull in a china shop. I think a better option than dividing up a group of people and assigning them to arbitrary groups would have been to present some ideas here on the talk page and work collaboratively with others to define some structure (if consensus to do so was determined by the group). Any attempt or even the mere appearance to place others in a box, define them, or assign roles without input of the players makes me just not interested. The key guideline for success in any group or volunteer effort is to remember that "people will support what they help to create." Remove that opportunity and you've lost me. Best regards, Cindy(talk to me) 09:08, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
    • What impresses me most is how similar our ideas are, even if we have different ideas on how to acheive them. I am going to work on a proposal for a basic structure based on what I'm hearing and put it here for others to review. I do not like top down management or heavy handed leaders either, but we do need a small group of people who can close discussions, act as neutral parties, offer guidance and should serve at the will of everyone here as a equal. Basically, a few volunteer janitors. This is why I said they would need to be half non-admins, as they are equals, no superiors. This is one reason why I won't be the "leader" of any project. Under no circumstances do I want it to look like this is my project, because it isn't, and I don't want to "lead" it. I see my role here as "instigator", someone who is willing to take risks and take the first steps, then let others do what they do best. I've been at my job almost 20 years, and we have no bosses, so I have a great deal of experience with this type of 'leaderless' system. We still need some structure however. The proposal was actually a good way to light a fire and get us to look at structure, so I appreciate it. Keep in mind, this has actually grown much faster than I anticipated. Let me chew on this today and propose something, then we can all tweak it as equal shareholders. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 12:02, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
  • I'm just going to echo Cindy, SV and Dennis. There is no problem with this wikiproject having task forces (ie one for one for research, one for implementation etc) there is a problem with the current team system (and the way in which ppl were volunteered, even though I know this was done in the best of good faith). There should be no hierarchy, no "team leaders" etc. Furthermore why are we not basing our goals/teams/task forces on the findings of research?
    I was going to post a separate post about what we, as a project, can learn from the previous failed attempts at retention, and community discussion about the Teahouse, but its justas germane here. One of thing we should understand is that anything that smells like Esperanza will not fly. A number of ppl (including myself) are deeply concerned that Foundation attempts at retention are straying into Esperanza territory. If we set-up teams with leaders we are heading that way too. It wont work, it's not helpful and a number of us (myself included) wont co-operate with such structures. Cindy has expressed this eloquently above, & I'm removing my name from the lists. I know this was bold and done in good faith but it's not being done right.
    To echo Dennis we need structure not government. Lets look at the WP:TASKFORCE model (which is standard for wikiprojects) and please slow down and do the research first--Cailil talk 11:49, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
I'd like to learn more about what didn't work. Where can I learn more about Esperanza? Gandydancer (talk) 21:45, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
WP:ESPERANZA and at its associated MFD. There are many other things that went this way too Wikipedia:Concordia (and its MFD), WP:AMA, WP:CSN and not all were associated with editor retention. What they have in common is the perception of cabalism (or the reality in Esperanza's case). If you go to WP:TEAROOM's talk archives you can see what ppl's concerns are about it going that way too.
All of these things had good intentions they just didn't understand what they were doing, and how building hierarchies (like teams and councils of editors etc) just wont fly--Cailil talk 18:21, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

Volunteerism

Having read all of the above, it seems basically to be a convertsation between a very small number of interested persons. All voluntary organisations have a whole range of issues that are part and parcel of the processes of interactions between people, and the dynamics of how things are dealt with (or not) - motivation to stay in, reasons to join - are all in the sociology texts of old, and a whole range of academics have explored all the issues over time. whether on-line voluntary participation is in any way substantially different, I doubt it.

wikipedia was a great thrill in the early days - but a whole range of things since have bothered me:

  • The Admin gauntlet and Arbcom gauntlet and associated shanigans suggest that some processes are a vast waste of time and energy and see a lot of people leave
  • watching corporate spin doctors or their henchpersons trying to manipulate the high scoring in goggle searches
  • the numerous holes in wikipedia due to the very skewed intellectual preferences of editors (has anyone really researched the vast perceptual inadequacies, or very skewed interests of most editors? each subject/project seems to have vast vacant lots where interest seems not to exist )
  • from personal experience I have seen many more people leave than stay, and have seen good acquaintances leave (or reduce involvement) for a whole range of issues
  • surely editor retention is a pointless exercise, real life is out there and many leave for too many reasons - perhaps it (the reason for this project) should be more looking at how to get new editors, rather than trying to keep - people come and go for too many reasons to ever encapsulate a possible easy fix -
  • if the editor numbers and editing is going down or bothering somebody, there is always the possibility that no project is going to fix that - if there is any element of truth in that assertion, I would think that wikimedia foundation are sitting on something that they should deal with and not leave it with the volunteers... SatuSuro 11:11, 12 July 2012 (UTC)
The idea that everything can't be left to volunteers is the same as saying you can't embody higher principles of justice into an angry torch bearing mob, it's obvious in both cases. To say that there is no good that can come out of the project at all is the same as saying it can fix all the problems that it identifies. I can learn from wikipedia's mistakes when creating systems for new projects which could possibly take a good share of the editors who choose not to use wikipedia, and a share in the good editors who cannot be retained, who cannot learn from the mistakes of others ? There are plenty of reasons besides these reasons why the project is worthwhile, if nothing else, it fills up the hard drives :) Penyulap ☏ 13:30, 12 Jul 2012 (UTC)
A hard to understand response, for something closer to the issues and more coherent and believable - look at Dr Blofelds comment below SatuSuro 23:50, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Regarding at least one of the points raised above, I am right now about six hours of staring at a monitor away from compiling a list of the various encyclopedias and such which have been reviewed by journals archived in JSTOR. The downside is, yeah, I haven't spent a single hour in the past month or so trying to change that, but it's been a weird month, OK? I do think that if we had a good idea of what kind of articles exist elsewhere, and provided an indicator to both newer and older editors where they could find material relevant to those subjects, that would help a lot, as would maybe some sort of central content, maybe at the community portal, regarding perhaps a specific group of individual articles, related or unrelated, as a form of regular "contest". But, yeah, with four million articles already existing, there are going to be less articles the average joe on the street is really actively personally motivated to create from scratch, and it gets harder and harder to find exactly which potential articles are notable for creation of those articles or knowing what material is missing from extant articles. John Carter (talk) 19:37, 22 July 2012 (UTC)

Interesting...

I'm not one to haunt Jimmy's page, but a previous discussion brought me there, and I thought it was interesting since he was talking about editor retention vs. admin actions. Don't need to pile in, but an interesting read. [11] Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 17:02, 20 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Missing_Wikipedians is proposed for deletion

Sorry for butting in here, but I thought some participants may want to know that Wikipedia:Missing_Wikipedians is being proposed for deletion Wikipedia:Miscellany_for_deletion/Wikipedia:Missing_Wikipedians_(3rd_nomination) Ottawahitech (talk) 16:32, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

  • Thanks for the heads up! We really need to incorporate that fully into the WER program and help out there, and get the regular contributors there to join us here. It certainly is within the scope of the Project. If someone will volunteer, that would be exceptionally kind of them. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © (WER) 15:04, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

StackOverflow has the same issues, apparently

For those interested in editor retention stuff, I'd recommend reading this blog post from StackExchange. StackExchange run a series of sites that started with Stack Overflow, a Q&A site for programmers. They've realised that they've got a civility problem and are going all WikiLove-ish. Interestingly, they are also rather conflicted about this. Here are some tweets from Joel Spolsky re The Atlantic piece on Wikipedia:

  • Read the comments: a lot of whining about the very thing that makes wikipedia work--its high standards
  • People seem to assume that they should be allowed to type whatever the hell they want into Wikipedia.
  • They don't see the contradiction between their perceived right to type anything into Wikipedia, and the quality of the content that is there
  • Same thing on s.tk: a lot of whining about strict mods, who are the very reason you're delighted when you find us in your search results

No comment. Just thought I should post it here for people to munch on when it comes to coming up with editor retention strategies. —Tom Morris (talk) 19:04, 23 July 2012 (UTC)

cool. and +1 on 3. Penyulap ☏ 20:27, 23 Jul 2012 (UTC)

Join WER

I've decided to add this tag to the end of my signature. I don't expect anyone else to but I encourage others to consider something similar.

<small><b>[[WP:WikiProject Editor Retention|Join WER]]</b></small>

Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 15:17, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

A suggestion for a proposal

I haven't been following the discussions here, but for anyone who may have missed it there is a pre-proposal here. Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 12:05, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

  • The pre-proposal seems to have garnered some clear support, and no opposition (although some people have misread it as an invitation for alternative proposals - but that's the downside of Wikipedia discussions).
I would now like to think that the pre-proposal could be moved to a full-blown RfC - unless of course there is local consensus to implement and deploy anyway, in which case, possibly only the Twinkle devs would need to be informed. What do the regulars at this project think? In my experience, such RfCs have more chance of getting accepted if prototypes of the new template messages are already available. Let's not forget that these template messages would only be effective if the NPPers are aware of them as soon as the new Special:NewPagesFeed goes live, which is likely to happen some time very soon. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:35, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Devs can kill anything, so I would suggest getting them in the loop before the RFC, at least at an informal level. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 19:47, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
AFAIK Twinkly things don't need to go through Bugzilla. They just tweak the js (or whatever it is). Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 03:55, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

is this one on the list thingy ?

recent retirement of someone big. Penyulap ☏ 03:48, 27 Jul 2012 (UTC)

Added more info to the retired editors list

I threw together a little Python script today and scraped through the list of retired editors, and pulled out:

  • Whether the user is currently blocked
  • The date and time of their last edit
  • The page they last edited
  • Their last edit summary

The list is still a little rough, but it's very interesting! It'll definitely help us in not wasting our time trying to bring back editors who never had any intention of contributing productively, or who retired one account to move to another (some final edit summaries say as much), etc. I'm most interested in those who look like they were editors in good standing and just wandered away. I plan on adding information about edit counts when I get a chance. If you have any more ideas about what I can pull out, drop me a note. Zad68 01:41, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

excellent work. Penyulap ☏ 03:32, 9 Jul 2012 (UTC)
I clicked sort on the comments list two times and saw "you can't reason with demagogues or devotees". Here I was thinking I might be the only one who knew the name of this absolutely pervasive menace, it's nice to know there are others. Penyulap ☏ 03:37, 9 Jul 2012 (UTC)
Pen, Ha!! I have updated the list again, it now has the following fields:
  • User
  • Blocked?
  • User groups
  • First Edit
  • Last Edit
  • Last Page Edited
  • Total edits
  • Live edits
  • Deleted edits
  • Unq pg ed
  • Avg edits/pg
  • Last Edit Summary
  • Last Contact
  • Notes
I will be adding more block log info. Zad68 16:54, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
I added block log info and also did a bit of cleanup to the list of retired editors. It's interesting to note that there are about 9 accounts that are marked as "Retired" but are also in the sysop group. If they're really retired, the groups should be removed from the accounts. Zad68 19:56, 9 July 2012 (UTC)
See also now the new list: Wikipedia:WikiProject_Editor_Retention/FA_editors_list Zad68 17:07, 10 July 2012 (UTC)
If you are going to list editors without informing them may I suggest blanking out or excluding those on this list? Also it isn't good practice to create a "name and shame" list or anything that hints of that. Some people think that doing so contributes further to the aggressive and less forgiving side of this place. So I'd suggest not listing blocked editors by name, either just exclude them from your list or replace their names with a placeholder such as <currently blocked account>. As some blocks are of former accounts or the accounts of deceased Wikipedians it risks causing confusion if you do a simplistic analysis of them. If your focus is on working out how we've lost those who are not currently blocked then I'd suggest excluding blocked editors altogether. ϢereSpielChequers 12:44, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Yow... yes I'll do this. It wasn't my intent to create "name and shame" list, just a resource for data mining. I see that a number of blocks are from totally innocent things like compromised accounts, account vacated to move to a new name, etc. But yeah, there's no point in keeping the blocked accounts included. Doing this now... Zad68 14:49, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
 Done Removed blocked users, blanked out edit counts from those editors who opted out. Zad68 15:29, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks, the blocked column is now redundant, but it might be worthwhile replacing it with a retired/decd column. Some editors quietly get less active and others formally retire. You could also use it to mark any you come across as deceased. I suspect they are currently only a small minority of our known former editors but they are of course not coming back and it would be perfectly in order to identify them as a subset of this group. You also have some IP addresses in there, I'd suggest removing them as the probability is that those IPs have simply been reassigned. ϢereSpielChequers 17:07, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
Sorry I only just caught up to this, but why on earth are blocked editors left off the list ? explain this one to me, because anyone can pick up a pointless of incorrect block, it's meaningless to blind ourselves to that demographic. Penyulap ☏ 23:49, 25 Jul 2012 (UTC)

The report only omits accounts that are currently blocked. Please see the definition of the word "retired" - ie "leaving". Being & remaining blocked is a different thing: being blocked is exclusion to prevent disruption of other people's work on WP. Incorrect blocks will be overturned. If you see one (an actually incorrect block and have valid evidence why) report it to ANi (but be clear spurious accusations against ppl who have blocked properly are themselves disruptive). In other words Penyulap become part of a solution if you are concerned about it--Cailil talk 14:11, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Arbitrators

Are Arbitrators in the pay of Britannica?

In my short time here I've encountered so many damaging actions taken against dedicated and able editors that, applying the cui bono principle, I can imagine only one scenario; and the fall-out is of course wider, effectively serving pour décourager les autres. Is there anything that can be done? Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 17:29, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
Ok, admittedly, you made me look up pour décourager les autres on Google, which lead me back here to François Henri de la Motte, ie: to ceremoniously butcher in public. I have to say I disagree with that approach, and pretty everything I do is for the purpose of doing the exact opposite, and instead engaging those with bad methods and actions, and trying to show them a better way. In this case, you are claiming that Arbitrators are in the pay of Britannica (a failed paper encyclopedia, I might add) without substantiating your claim. This would be conjecture at best, which isn't particularly enlightening or helpful. There are plenty of problems that affect editors staying around here, and this Project was founded with the goal of discovering and fixing some of those problems with a positive and proactive approach. It isn't acceptable, however, to make unsubstantiated claims in this way, and the honorable thing to do would be to strike them. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 18:14, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
@Dennis: The Encyclopedia Britannica was for many decades the sine qua non of encyclopedias, so calling it a "failed paper encyclopedia" is far too dismissive of what it achieved. We should be so lucky to be as authoritative as it was in its heydey. Beyond My Ken (talk) 19:46, 23 July 2012 (UTC)
Sorry for the failure to express myself clearly and politely; my basic point is that in our midst is the proverbial mastodon, it has no mahout, and as yet does not feature large in this project; I know not what can be done, but perhaps others have suggestions; in the meantime, thank you for your efforts, Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 19:12, 21 July 2012 (UTC) P.S. Don't discount Britannica yet - in my neck of the woods taxpayers are funding subscriptions at the local libraries.
I would put it even more succinctly: We have bulls in the china shop. Some eventual misuse of admin tools gets quietly resolved before it reaches Arbcom - perhaps because they are due simply to carelessness rather than bad faith, exasperation, or admin overload, but they still cause editors to retire which of course isn't acceptable. Over time however, a history of inaccurate admin operations and/or less serious comments becomes as disruptive as admin incivility [12] [13], wheel waring, and vengeance blocks, and something needs to be done. The only people who end up being widely discouraged are the mature, experienced editors who should be running for adminship but won't because they are not prepared to risk taking the flak that admin actions often engender; being an active admin necessarily requires stepping into cesspools of contentiousness with the associated danger of catching a ricochet. IMHO, two of the most important areas that should be addressed in order to retain editors are ensuring that the right kind of admins are elected (for which we desperately need candidates of the right calibre), and insisting that the right kind of editors operate NPP. Plus of course providing new users with a new, informative, interactive landing page that will help them avoid unpleasantness right from the start. --Kudpung กุดผึ้ง (talk) 20:07, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
      • If you looked at my contribs, you would find I'm quite active in this. This is covered by the project as well, but that is only aspect here. The project isn't rigidly defined to a single purpose, except anything that affects retention. Bad calls by admins are part of the problem, but not the majority of problems. I would argue that POV, socks and edit warring causes more people to leave than anything. Of course, now I've joined SPI as well, and I've always been the ghost at ANI, catching other issues. So I agree it is a problem and one that I work on every day, along with a number of other issues. Literally, 90% of my wiki-time is dealing with issues relating to retention now. Part of the admin issue is to get involved and get new admins that have the right attitude. I've nom'ed two admin candidates in the last week, two people who I think will be exceptional admins because of their calm way of dealing with problems. One has already become admin in the last 24 hours, the other is still pending. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 20:58, 21 July 2012 (UTC)
        • Eureka (or perhaps not): how about instituting a more friendly alternative venue for resolution, a pow-wow of peers rather than conclave of elders, where no-one has powers of execution but a few sage and non-involved voices can add their tuppeny-worth in a neutral and less-threatening venue; where's there's some kind of dispute the parties could then choose between Arbitration (carrot) and Arbitration (stick); I guess I have in immediate mind the threatened [14] and guaranteed-to-be mutually destructive WP:ARBPIA3 (Israel/Palestine...); at least it could act as an intermediate step? The arbcom pages are so adversarial, partly maybe because of the likely outcomes - would a more flowery venue for appeals to reason rather than the exaction of punishment help? Maculosae tegmine lyncis (talk) 10:08, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

Getting across to newbies quickly and clearly ...

... OK, I couldn't think of a better section title!

Although I thoroughly approve of getting newbies to read our policies and understand them as soon as possible, if we look at the welcome messages which include links to a load of pages, by the time a newbie has read all the links, they've read a very thick user manual. Most of 'em actually won't do that; they want to just get in and start editing. And then they fall over and get heavily discouraged by having people chucking links to TL;DR-appearing pages at them.

I'm trying to work on something that will bridge the gap between total newbieness and total policy-awareness, just to get people started (it was someone else's baby, but I've been working up some stuff on it as it seemed like such a good idea, and getting the gist of our policies across quickly and clearly has always been an interest of mine).

My aim here is to get a foundation-level summary of some major policies across in less than a screenful for each policy, with "read more" type links to the actual policies themselves. I'm also aiming to make the approach friendly and personal, as it would be said if we were speaking to the individual newbie. I think that makes us look much less oppressive / authoritarian / pompous [insert all those other possible misconceptions here]. It hopefully makes us look easier to work with.

I think something like that is both much more likely to be read, and much, much less daunting, than the aforementioned very thick user manual.

Could you guys take a look at it as it is so far? If we could get something like this substr'd as part of an automatic welcome message, it may help people get a foot on the first rung of the ladder. Pesky (talk) 03:26, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Hi Pesky! Thanks for the link. I'll be looking over it. I have one initial comment. I feel that the links to the full policies should be more uniform. On a similar note, I recently created {{Clickable button}} that might be a useful format for those links. Ryan Vesey Review me! 03:29, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
On another note, I don't know if I understood you correctly, but I don't think this should be part of a welcome message. I wouldn't have anything against linking to this in a welcome message though. It's just too long for that and our messages are too long as it is. Ryan Vesey Review me! 03:35, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Hey Ryan! That was a quick response, lol! What I'd really like to happen, eventually (OK, ASAP!) would be for every new account created to get an immediate basic welcome message, with this stuff subst'd onto their talk page just below the basic welcome message. I know that most created accounts don;t turn into productive editors, but if the process of getting foundation-level policy stuff across to everyone was an automatic response to the creation of an account, nothing would be lost by it appearing on a multitude of new user talk pages, and possibly quite a few new users could be saved right in their first days, before they make a mistake. The "You have new messages" banner is accompanied by an absolute compulsion to go and read them ... it's the Facebook generation, and we can make use of that. Pesky (talk) 03:40, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

P.S. Do feel free to standardise the links with those clickable buttons - that would be awesome! Pesky (talk) 03:55, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I'll start off with a comment on the buttons. I standardized them; however, there is one issue that exists with them. Although the buttons exist and encourage clicking (in my mind), the text still needs to be clicked. If you click on the edge of the button it will not link. Do you think this causes unnecessary confusion or is it fine? Ryan Vesey Review me! 04:03, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Ideally the entire button should be clickable. Does using buttons instead of text links use of stupid amounts of server space? That would be one of the things which might be a contra-indication if this were transluded to every new account's talk page. Pesky (talk) 04:06, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I have no idea how it would affect server space. It is transcluded and is a relatively small template so I don't think it will make a huge difference. The only way I could imagine an entirely clickable button would be to use a public domain image that is linked to the desired page. We could potentially find someone willing to make those images if we were entirely certain of the text (or knew someone who was very good at photoshop and could change it in the future). Ryan Vesey Review me! 04:18, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I'll expand with a comment on the automatic appearance of this on pages. I feel that it would be an Everest style battle to get that approved. Automatic welcome messages is on the list of perennial proposals. The Teahouse recently had to fight an uphill battle just to get a bot to be allowed to invite a small list of users based on a defined criteria. I think a better thing would be to create a simple welcome template that goes along with this. The template would consist of two things. A welcome including a thanks for the editors contributions, and a link to the page stating that it is highly suggested reading to get an editor started on Wikipedia. In any case, I know this is a work in progress, but a new editor recently asked for a "guide to citizenship". I'm going to link her to this so that I can ask her if she feels that it is helpful and figure out what confuses her. It is sometimes difficult for us to see because we understand it all (or think we do ). I have one comment on the Jack and Jennifer notability section. I think that it might be useful to give an example of a situation where they would be notable. We don't want to discourage article creation completely. Finally, would a hoax created by a 10 year old girl qualify as a self-published source? I can't imagine a situation where information we knew to be false could be used in an article. I'll try to look some more tomorrow and leave a few more comments. Ryan Vesey Review me! 04:18, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Thanks for your work so far! Awesome! I'm pretty good with Photoshop myself, so I can always help out with stuff like that (provided I'm not too busy doing something else, lol!) Maybe I can include a situation where Jennifer's hoax might be notable. Pesky (talk) 05:05, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

A quick, clear welcome

Below is the Welcome I am currently using. Since we can't predict what the newbie will need in their early struggles the upper multiple links are necessary to cast the widest net. As you can see, in the more personal lower message, I send the newbie to PoetGals "How-to" page 'cause I thought it fit the bill...informative and easy to grasp. I could easily replace PoetGal's How-to with pesky's one page view whenever Pesky gives the go-ahead.

Hello WikiProject Editor Retention/Archive 1. Welcome to the English version of Wikipedia
Thank you for your participation in this project. We hope that you will stay to contribute and that you will find the collaboration process enjoyable.
Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that started in 2001 and is free for all to use and edit under certain guidelines and principles that all users should understand and adhere to.
These principles and guidelines are listed below. Click on the link next to the images for more information.
The five pillars of Wikipedia.
The fundamental principles of the project.
Help.
How to get help.
Tutorial.
This tutorial is a basic guide to editing.
Your user pages and your sandbox.
How to experiment and edit in your user space.
Mentoring program.
Request help in your first steps of editing.
How to start a page.
Help on creating your first article.
Things to avoid.
How to avoid common errors and mistakes.
Style Guide.
How to write in an acceptable style.
Main policies of Wikipedia.
Wikipedia's main policies and guidelines.
Frequently asked questions.
Some common questions and their answers.
Help Desk.
Here you can ask other editors for assistance
Quick reference.
A handy quick reference guide for editing Wiki.

This is your Talk page where you can receive messages from other Wikipedians and discuss things with them. At the end of your messages you must put your signature by signing with four ~~~~ (just as I have done) or by pressing the button in the editor bar as shown here in the picture. By the way, you don't need to sign edits that you make in the articles themselves as those messages will be deleted. Another valuable page that may provide information and assistance is User:Persian Poet Gal/"How-To" Guide to Wikipedia. My name is Buster7. If you have any questions or face any initial hurdles, feel free to contact me on my talk page and I will do what I can to assist or give you guidance and contact information. Good Luck editing!

```Buster Seven Talk 06:30, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

Looks good except - a really big problem we have is copyvio. Hardly a day passes when I don't find big chunks of it. I strongly think we need something included with appropriate links. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 09:02, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
  • Excellent! Exceptionally clean and simple, yet easy on the eyes. We can discuss tweaks, but the overall format, look and feel are the best I've seen. If I had my say, this would be automatically generated as soon as the account was created. Maybe that is a new topic to explore. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © (WER) 14:47, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I can't agree with you there. When someone's first edit is clearly vandalism, copyvio, pov, a BLP violation, etc. we should as politely as possible give them a welcome which deals with the specific problem. Dougweller (talk) 15:20, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I see your point. But could TW determine it is a new user, and add the proper template, according to the type of tag you are putting on their talk page? I would assume so. But as a general template, I still think this is a great one. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 19:14, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Could the new "WikiLove" user talk page tab be adjusted to include one or two template messages for new editors, IPs, or whatever? That might make it a lot simpler. John Carter (talk) 19:40, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Any reason to use WikiLove over Twinkle? Ryan Vesey Review me! 19:45, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
I really think we'd have a problem with automatic page generation. The only way I think we'd have a chance is if it wasn't formatted as a welcome, but instead a suggested guide. I'd be a bit wary of giving new editors a "reading list" without welcoming them though. I still think the best solution is a simple welcome message that contains no suggestions other than a link to this page. Ryan Vesey Review me! 19:45, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
First, not everyone uses Twinkle. I know I don't. But it might be rather offputting if, a few weeks or days after starting, a newbie saw that the message he thought was a thoughtful and personal message to them was just a template that could be generated with three or four clicks, yeah. Some sort of short page, or a link to a page, might be preferable, and maybe less disappointing later. John Carter (talk) 21:04, 25 July 2012 (UTC)
Just some general info, for what its worth. I don't use Twinkle. I make individual welcomes by selecting working newbies from the Recent changes page. I never welcome a (User creation log) editor. There are too many and my guess is most are temporary or SPA's. I do a quick scan to see if there are any red-linked talks that may be "in a situation". If none, then its a completely random selection. I only watchlist the editors that 1) may need some assistance, 2) may be paid advocates/operatives, and 3) may be vandals or, at least, of questionable nature. I only watchlist for about a week. Sometimes I run across editors that may have already received a welcome but have hit an early roadblock. I give them some "hang in there" support, watch for a while and then move on. I don't hold their hand but I do show them where the crosswalk is. WikiWorld can be a mean place when you just get into town. One other thought. Think back to what worked for you...a simple welcome or a laundry list of places to go and to learn. For me, it was the list. A simple welcome would have sufficed but I still would have been lost as to what to do to become an editor. ```Buster Seven Talk 02:54, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Again, I love your welcome template. The images make it easier on the eyes, easier to find what you want, make it interesting enough to actually read and those things matter. We can debate when and how or some of the links, etc. , but as far as template designs, I'm impressed with your effort to keep it consistent with Wikipedia standards and yet flow quite nicely. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 03:11, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
BusterSeven, that's a great approach, I love it. We need people like you doing this. I love your template also, but again, can you please mention copyvio? There are a number of editors who come from cultures where this isn't seen as a problem and can innocently add to the copyvio problems we have. Thanks. Dougweller (talk) 08:33, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Only an organizational issue, but why not put the Help, FAQ and Help desk sections next to each other since they're prettty similar. Thanks ツ Jenova20 (email) 08:42, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Just to mention, I've been using that one (from User:Chaosdruid/welcome) for a while, but looking at the links, I found them outdated. I updated just a month or two ago, using the teahouse colour scheme as I was referring a lot of new people to the teahouse as part of my welcome.

Hello WikiProject Editor Retention! Welcome to the English version of Wikipedia
Thanks for your contributions so far, we hope that you will stay and that you will find the collaboration enjoyable. I am Worm That Turned, an editor who's been here a while. Wikipedia is an online encyclopedia that started in 2001 and is free for all to use and edit under certain guidelines and principles that all users must try and adhere to.
Lots of these principles and guidelines are listed below. Click on the link next to the images for more information.
Policies and guidelines Help and Tutorials
The five pillars of Wikipedia.
The fundamental principles of the project.
Tutorial.
Step-by-step guide on how to edit.
Main policies of Wikipedia.
Wikipedia's main policies and guidelines.
How to start a page.
If you want to create a new article
Style Guide.
The complete guide to how articles should look.
Help.
The complete help guide
Asking for help
Quick reference.
A handy quick reference guide for editing Wiki.
Help Desk.
Here you can ask other editors for assistance
Your user pages and your sandbox.
Editing in your own "personal" space
Adoption program.
Request an experienced guide for your first steps of editing.
Frequently asked questions.
Some common questions and their answers.

This is your Talk page where you can receive messages from other Wikipedians and discuss things with them. At the end of your messages you must put your signature by signing with four ~~~~ or by pressing or in your interface. Do not sign in the articles themselves as those messages will be deleted.

If you need anything else, let me know! WormTT(talk) 08:48, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

It's available at User:Worm That Turned/Welcome, if anyone wants it. The links are all direct links, and the description of each is more accurate. I think it's easier on the eye, is less imposing on text and is laid out with sections. What's more it includes both "insert sig" buttons, as the signature button changed over a year ago. WormTT(talk) 09:00, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
It's certainly easier on the eye and quicker to read. I like it ツ Jenova20 (email) 09:02, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
New Welcomes are on the drawing board. See Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Welcome. Input welcome. ```Buster Seven Talk 15:04, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Simplified Manual of Style (WP:SMOS)

I slapped together a specific svg graphic for the group. I might put together a few others.

Editor retention logo 1

--Amadscientist (talk) 07:06, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

It's beautiful, even though I thought "seat belts?" Penyulap ☏ 15:41, 26 Jul 2012 (UTC)
Should I adjust the quill smaller or just take them out? What do you think?--Amadscientist (talk) 20:04, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
If anyone has a suggestion of something for me to create, let me know.--Amadscientist (talk) 20:52, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
Have you seen the image in the userbox on my userpage? I kind of like that image, which is similar in style. In general, I like this as well. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 20:59, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
I like the quill but it does look like a seatbelt. Suggestion: Movement is always eye-catching. Can you get the right side editors to move left...back in the fold so to speak? Also, being the mad scientist that you are, can you go to Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention/Welcome and add WP:CopyVio with the Copyright logo to the left column (under the Style Guide)? Sure would be appreciated by 2 old farts.```Buster Seven Talk 21:18, 26 July 2012 (UTC)
I made the change on the Welcome page and had to change the first title and lose one. Seems to work, but let me know if anything needs adjusting. I'll full around with the logo and make the suggested changes and a few others and load them as alternatives.--Amadscientist (talk) 07:53, 27 July 2012 (UTC)

I've been slowly looking for some icons to follow the lead of Amadscientist, I found another along the way. Penyulap ☏ 07:08, 27 Jul 2012 (UTC)

  • I'm more for images that show a positive experience, a positive connection. That is the goal of the Project, to affect positive change, with positive outcomes. This is why I liked the one I have in my userbox, two people holding hands, essentially. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 11:44, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
found this one I could adjust if you like Penyulap ☏ 07:08, 27 Jul 2012 (UTC)
  • I thought very hard about the idea of positive imagery. Also about conveying an idea through the image itself. I think the problem is that my imgae is focusing on the missing and not on the outreach itself. good points to remember.--Amadscientist (talk) 21:16, 27 July 2012 (UTC)
  • This is one reason I like the hand outreached. "Outreach" is a good verbal cue for the image to have, as that is what we do. The overall type of image I think is good, again consistent with the current test userbox. How do we make them reaching out to each other, I will leave to the artist ;) Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 00:04, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Again these are just suggestions for different uses, but I like the discussion as it focuses the ideas on just what we are trying to do here. So... --Amadscientist (talk) 05:00, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Wunderbar! Dramatic, eye-catching, Modern. Quite unique. ```Buster Seven Talk 05:51, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

👍 Like Hey, I really like that one :D Pesky (talk) 05:56, 28 July 2012 (UTC)

Seems silly now, but I was thinking of a crowd that changes as wiki dies, I have to draw a lot more kinds of people though, and I don't know if it is worth it

It's just a kind of idea is all, not anywhere near a draft level I guess.. Penyulap ☏ 20:10, 28 Jul 2012 (UTC) Well even the storyboard won't display, probably just as well. strange it can click through to commons though. Penyulap ☏ 20:15, 28 Jul 2012 (UTC)

SuperHamster

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