Wikipedia opening a Teahouse?, Not to be confused with Teahot Options

[melloden]

I noticed this developing "Teahouse" project today. It seems to be yet another one of their make-new-editors-fit-in initiatives, and given that it's being organized by "community fellows" I would assume that the WMF is paying for this.

The Teahouse is a populated, user-friendly welcome center/help space that organizes experienced editors to actively reach out to new users in a many-to-many setting and provides on-wiki encouragement and peer support to promising new editors to promote increased engagement and retention.

Here's the problem I see with them wasting time and money on things like this, which are destined to end up as useless like every previous program with the same goal (Wiki Guides? Mood Bar? Wiki Love?): Wikipediots don't want to be "user-friendly" and "reach out." They're usually nerds, antisocial Internet addicts, or awkward social outcasts who don't understand the concepts of "encouragement" or "peer support."

Why does the WMF not realize this? Or does this Teahouse idea actually have a chance or succeeding? I doubt it.

[Cino]

It looks like a way for more people to understand editing policies, so it would seem a good use of a bit of money, particularly with worries about the quality of biographies. Presumably it's not going to cost much or possibly nothing. Does any one know how much?

[thekohser]

It looks like a way for more people to understand editing policies, so it would seem a good use of a bit of money, particularly with worries about the quality of biographies. Presumably it's not going to cost much or possibly nothing. Does any one know how much?

The "cost" will get sunk into the salaries of the one or two or three Wikimedia Foundation staff members who will spend their time working on this very, very important initiative. The fact that Carrite was deemed to have a "special 'knack' for working with new users" shows you that only the top-most intelligent and savvy of WMF employees are being assigned to this very, very important initiative. So, we might estimate that their salaries are in the $70K to $80K range.