meta Research:Newcomer quality and strategy.wikimedia.org Editor Trends Study Options

[jsalsman]

What about all these automated tools Wikipedians use like Twinkle or whatever? Seems like those would be a prime way to attack WP, for a skilled hacker.

They don't represent substantial attack vectors unless attackers compromise an administrator account.

But I think you have it the wrong way around. Those automated tools started being used about the same time that new users stopped staying and experienced users started leaving:




(Mod note: Split from 'Wikipedia's susceptibility for a hacktivist attack' -Selina)

This post has been edited by Selina: Fri 30th March 2012, 5:32pm

[Selina]

Yeah, I think the use of bots growing definitely helped make a lot of people leave, the depersonalisation of it, the tone of the warning messages making people feel unwelcome for making mistakes (I remember looking through them, and finding one template saying "don't thank vandals for their contributions!" with the subtext that anyone making a mistake is also a vandal) etc, but where was that really good graph again of their falling user numbers since 2005/2006?

It was also when the first major controversies started happening too, the mask of the utopian vision of people working together with no bias or cliques forming beginning to slip, some of the admin cabals (which seems to happen in just about any kind of internet power structure based upon the traditional 'administrators' way such as so many web forums... and the digg/reddit model of 'votes' also similar to Wikipedia in that whoever is the most interested in a topic can control and shut out minorities) and ad-hoc lobby groups taking control of articles becoming famous, etc...

This post has been edited by Selina: Sat 17th March 2012, 5:50pm

[Wikitaka]

Yeah, where was that really good graph again of their falling user numbers since 2005/2006?

That was when the first major controversies started happening too, the mask of the utopian vision of people working together with no bias or cliques forming beginning to slip, some of the admin cabals (which seems to happen in just about any kind of internet power structure based upon the traditional 'administrators' way such as so many web forums... and the digg/reddit model of 'votes' also similar to Wikipedia in that whoever is the most interested in a topic can control and shut out minorities) and ad-hoc lobby groups taking control of articles becoming famous, etc...

There you go.

This post has been edited by Wikitaka: Sat 17th March 2012, 5:52pm

[Selina]

Oh yeah, but there was another one posted more recently too I think?

[jsalsman]

Oh yeah, but there was another one posted more recently too I think?

I remember editing the warning templates back in '06, before either of us had been banned the first time, Selina (I think we met on discussions of the userbox userfication controversy of '06) trying to include "please" and "thank you" and making them less accusatory. Some of it sticked, some of it didn't, but I understand that there is a big Foundation study coming out soon from the Community Organizers or Liasons, or whatever they are, saying that kinder gentler template makes a huge difference in retention.

And someone had the good sense to ask the chapter representative board candidates to think of three ways to improve recruitment or retention, how those ways could be measured, and how well the Foundation has been doing measuring causes of attrition. Those questions are a whole lot more interesting than squabbling over money. It's really sad to see the Foundation and the chapters squabbling over money. Don't these people know how to settle the unimportant things with a coin flip?

When you consider what the tone of templates can do, just think, if an evil hactivist really wanted to attack Wikipedia, how could they do worse than the GNAA strategy of introducing hateful racist and sexist epithets into the day to day discussions?

This post has been edited by jsalsman: Sat 17th March 2012, 11:26pm

[Fusion]

Oh yeah, but there was another one posted more recently too I think?

It looks to me as if the gap between the graphs is widening. That would mean that the number of editors of the non-English sites is growing.

[Web Fred]

Oh yeah, but there was another one posted more recently too I think?

It looks to me as if the gap between the graphs is widening. That would mean that the number of editors of the non-English sites is growing.

That's probably because they don't have as many articles as the main site.

[Selina]

meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newcomer_quality

the proportion of new editors who are trying to edit productively has not decreased, but that the rate of rejection has increased, and the rate of survival among good faith editors has decreased.

strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/Editor_Trends_Study

rate of rejection of all good-faith new editors’ first contributions has been rising steadily, and, accordingly, retention rates have fallen. What this means is that while just as many productive contributors enter the project today as in 2006, they are entering an environment that is increasingly challenging, critical, and/or hostile to their work.

[Web Fred]

They don't necessarily need new editors, they need better editors.
There's no point in having a semi-literate teenager from the public school system who knows fuck-all about fuck-all editing when they can have a professor, or at the very least an enthusiast who knows their subject well and can write well.

When are these people going to understand that quality trumps quantity big time!

The same goes for Commons, what is the point in having millions of shite-quality images (whether it's porn or otherwise) when no-one is likely to use them for anything. If they want to be known as a professional quality media library a-la Corbis etc then they need editors who are prepared to cull the also-rans.

This post has been edited by Web Fred: Fri 30th March 2012, 11:06am