Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 07:08, 27 July 2012

This is the talk page for discussing WikiProject Editor Retention and anything related to its purposes and tasks.

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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: Misplaced Pages: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)

Core reasons for good editor dissatisfaction related to content: Unmet need for recognition, Frustration with seeing good work ruined, Exasperation at having to continuously defend completed work

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

Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages, because Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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:

• Misplaced Pages needs to recognize and protect "completed" articles and good content
• Misplaced Pages 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
• Misplaced Pages 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 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 Misplaced Pages'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 Misplaced Pages: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: Misplaced Pages: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: Misplaced Pages needs to recognize and protect "completed" articles and good content. Yes. In addition, Misplaced Pages 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 , but ultimately banned (simply because he edited "difficult" subjects and did not have infinite patience), comes back to create more good content , but banned again, and so on , 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: Misplaced Pages: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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages: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 Misplaced Pages 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)

• One note of opinion here, if he could be talked into it, Dr. Blofeld would be a great candidate for a Council of Editors position. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 00:06, 12 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 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 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 Misplaced Pages'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 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 Misplaced Pages 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)
    • As I noted below, I have started Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Editor Retention/Pact which is a start to address these needs. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 13:51, 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 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 Misplaced Pages: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 18:21, 15 July 2012 (UTC)

• • I moved the teams to another page as it was causing a bit of confusion for new member sign up as everyone ended up being listed twice on the front page. We can discuss the ideas here and tweak it there. It is at WP:WikiProject Editor Retention/Teams, which can be renamed later if everyone chooses. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 12:38, 14 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)

Comments from Jimmy Wales

I have just come across these recent comments from Jimmy Wales which directly address our problem. Maybe we have not been paying enough attention to the problem of having to write and edit wiki code. I remember about a year ago there were strategic discussions about how to improve the editing process but I can't see there has been much progress - rather the reverse. I brought this up with one or two administrators at the time but received very firm replies that they thought wiki code was great! Ideally new editors should be able to edit in WYSIWYG mode, at least until they perceive the need to deal with more complicated formats such as tables and annotated images. Is there any consenus here about trying to move in this direction? --Ipigott (talk) 17:48, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

• Difficulty of interface was also mentioned in Nine Reasons Why Women Don't Edit Misplaced Pages by Sue Gardner. I'm not sure what we can about that at en.wiki alone, however. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 18:11, 13 July 2012 (UTC)
• WYSIWYG is here! Check out mw:VisualEditor:Test and try it out for yourself. There are still a lot of kinks and it will be a while before they roll it out. In the meantime, I'd suggest that we focus on the aspects we have control over. If you do feel strongly about the visual editor, you can try to get more involved on the media wiki site. Ryan Vesey Review me! 18:17, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

If I'm honest, my general perception in recent months is that the number of decent contributors who know how to write good starter articles and GAs has actually been steadily climbing. I personally believe that the quality of new articles is generally at an all time high and I see evidence of a broader coverage on an increasingly wide range of topics. Yes, we have lost a shocking number of decent editors through stupid wiki bureaucracy which could have been avoidable through a lesser stiff assed "community" where civility is not valued above content, but I think our focus should be more on attracting a new pool of editors and breathe new life into the project by offering monthly competitions like Core Contest of the month and Best Article of the Month which actually offer incentives to editors to produce the goods. The key I think is incentive to edit, which would not only retain many of our existing editors but bring in a diversity of people from all walks of life. It might even prompt some of the lazy sods here who do bugger all to contribute to content but sit around moaning about everything to write something substantial for the first time in 5 years. You advertise over the internet, on Facebook and Twitter than wikipedia is offering $500 Amazon vouchers as a top prize for writing the best article of the month and suddenly you have people knocking on your doorstep joining the party screaming "Its Stifler time baby"! Well, not quite, but I think you'd be amazed. I have brought this up with WF and I believe Wikimedia UK have shown the most interest.♦ Dr. Blofeld 20:09, 13 July 2012 (UTC)

Jimbo's article was an interesting read. I think he was spot on describing one of the difficulties seniors face trying to edit wikipedia, the editing interface. Has anyone done research on other barriers to seniors' participation? Imagine a world where millions of grandmas and grandpas were "active editors"... --Rosiestep (talk) 06:41, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

easier to imagine than today's editors still being editors by the time they are grandparents. It is a good idea to improve the interface, it's a huge chunk of the problems and the solutions right there. Penyulap ☏ 07:15, 14 Jul 2012 (UTC)

Not all grandparents suffer from IT illiteracy. One of the huge advantages many of us have over the newbies is that we can type quickly on a keyboard having been brought up with typewriters -- at least those of us from the English-speaking world. If you look carefully at the rather better new articles, you'll see quite a few of them are written (or improved) by retirees. That does not mean, of course, that we would not like a better editing interface. If we could cut down on all those ALT-triggered keystrokes for square and curly brackets, vertical bars and strange accents it would certainly help. And there must be an easier way to deal with wikilinks. --Ipigott (talk) 08:32, 14 July 2012 (UTC)

Speaking both as a grandparent and as a female editor, we do have to remember that there are indeed a goodly number of those in either set (and in both) who are fairly clued-up! I cut my programming teeth on COBOL, back in the 1970's, for instance. In terms of making the editing interface much more user-friendly WYSIWYG is the obvious move to be making here; at the same time, though, we all need to be a bit careful with making apparently ageist and / or apparently sexist remarks, because those just in themselves can drive people away. Pesky (talk) 03:09, 25 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. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © 17:02, 20 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 , 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)

Misplaced Pages:Missing_Wikipedians is proposed for deletion

Sorry for butting in here, but I thought some participants may want to know that Misplaced Pages:Missing_Wikipedians is being proposed for deletion Misplaced Pages: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 Misplaced Pages:

• 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 Misplaced Pages.
• They don't see the contradiction between their perceived right to type anything into Misplaced Pages, 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)

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 . 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 Misplaced Pages. 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. Welcome to the English version of Misplaced Pages
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.
Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages. Misplaced Pages'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 Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages 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 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 Misplaced Pages
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. Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages. The fundamental principles of the project.		Tutorial. Step-by-step guide on how to edit.
	Main policies of Misplaced Pages. Misplaced Pages'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! Worm(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. Worm(talk) 09:00, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

It's certainly easier on the eye and quicker to read. I like it ツ Jenova20 09:02, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

New Welcomes are on the drawing board. See Misplaced Pages:WikiProject Editor Retention/Welcome. Input welcome. ```Buster Seven Talk 15:04, 26 July 2012 (UTC)j

Some projects dying

I joined solely because i've had a discussion similar to this about Wikiproject:LGBT Studies recently. Newsletters stopped long ago, membership is still increasing but the visibility of their contributions isn't, contributions appear to be falling. The project is dying and the workload is ever increasing. This can't be the only project like this but it's startling that we can't hold onto members across Misplaced Pages and we need ways to make Misplaced Pages simpler to edit by making things clearer and simpler. There may well be as many policies and essays as there are members now and in the heydays of 2007/8 Misplaced Pages was a force to be reckoned with. Now it's suffering from poor retention, mass vandalism and hostility and overcomplications. Thanks and that's just my 2p worth, but it's obvious in some places ツ Jenova20 11:57, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

you changed your name, was there conflict ? Penyulap ☏ 12:06, 25 Jul 2012 (UTC)

I've been Jenova20 since i joined in 2010 to work on the Arabian KSU Ghazal vehicle. I've never had a different identity, only a differnt signature. Conflict? Yep, too much. Thanks ツ Jenova20 12:19, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

First, many projects are dying not so much for the reasons given above, but rather that the basic content relating to their central topic is to some reasonable level developed. As articles get better, it is harder to improve them, and generally requires much more work. And while several comparatively minor topics relating to the subject of a group do, obviously, remain in poor or nonexistent levels, that is often because of the difficulty in finding sources to use. I know, as someone who has studied religion, particularly Christianity, for about 30 years, even some of the clearly Christian articles in the Encyclopedia of Religion, one of the most best and most comprehensive sources in the field, are about people or individuals I admit having never even seen mentioned before to my memory. The list of those articles can be found at User:John Carter/Religion articles, and, yeah, I had never even heard of some of these subjects before, particularly articles relating to the Armenian, Syriac, Assyrian and other churches. One of the problems with editor retention is finding ways to make it easier to find material for content and to develop content, and that is a reasonable point, but I'm not sure it is or really necessarily should be on of the focuses of this group, although I would obviously welcome input from others on that. John Carter (talk) 14:57, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

I'm not saying it's only this group, i'm giving an example of my experience and saying that for this group in particular members are constantly increasing for LGBT studies and most of the article content will actually be easily sourced on the internet as it's recent, in the last couple years or a bit longer, but...I'm not the most active Wikipedian and yet i'm one of the most active on the talk page of LGBT Studies and get little response. The automobile wikiproject on the other hand is getting stronger by the day and gets a massive audience.

I've also noticed an issue in some cases where we specifically have bias on a lot of articles where we end up in a tug of war with religious wikiprojects and editors and even references from LGBT news sources are accused of a bias, while reporting a more factual account of both sides than what the other side puts up, leaving nothing that can be used without this accusation being thrown at it. Thanks ツ Jenova20 15:07, 25 July 2012 (UTC)

The religion/LGBT battleground is not a fun one, I know, even though I personally tend to be less involved in that field. And, recently, we've had editors saying journals published by historically evangelical universities, like Baylor University, aren't RS material simply because of the school's historic ties to a religion. But for battleground topics like religion/LGBT, and others like it, it might be nice if we had some sort of unofficial standing "compromise committee" along the lines of the groups ArbCom has set up in the past for abortion, Palestine-Israel matters, and the like, No idea how to institute such, though. John Carter (talk) 15:41, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

It's a pain in the arse to even edit articles with any remote relation to religion and LGBT issues because of that. I really do think that contributes a lot to the LGBT Studies member retention. Thanks ツ Jenova20 15:45, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

@Jenova20, I'm still a new enough editor that I've never even seen a newsletter. The LGBT Studies Wikiproject is one of the more active projects I've seen, so kudos to you for helping to keep it alive. ~Adjwilley (talk) 19:37, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

Also at @Jenova20, I don't have the answers myself, but I can clearly see how LBGT editing problems can contribute to editor retention issues, and by all means, you are more than welcome to setup a subsection and recruit others. As someone who is fairly outspoken in the real world on the issue (and who works with many less enlightened but otherwise kind people) I fully support the efforts. Everyone should be free to add to Misplaced Pages equally, without constant hassles or harassment from POV editors. Sounds like an issue perfectly in line with our objectives here. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 19:45, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

If overall editor numbers are broadly stable, and despite the slight increase year on year I think we should count them as such, we should expect that individual WikiProjects will vary in their activity from year to year and even month to month. Most "active" WikiProjects have only a handful of active members, and it might only take a couple of enthusiasts to breathe new life into a project. Conversely one key retirement can greatly weaken a project. Personally I think that it is healthy if instead of a small number of consistently active projects we have a much larger number of projects many of which are only intermittently active. But perhaps we need to find ways to encourage our newer members to pick up and revive old projects. ϢereSpielChequers 18:16, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

There hasn't been one since 2009 so i haven't seen one either. I've offered to help out create one in the last few days though. You can find it and suggest content at Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject LGBT studies#Newsletter if you have time. Thanks ツ Jenova20 19:49, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

I swear I am going to try to get to work on finishing the list of dictionaries reviewed on JSTOR come Monday. I think making it easier for newer editors to get a good grasp of a subject will make it a lot easier for some projects to be revived, and for some marginally interested editors to develop related content. I could probably use several rather colorfully phrased messages on my talk page early Monday morning US time to help remind me, though. John Carter (talk) 19:54, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

You can do it! Dennis Brown - 2¢ © Join WER 20:03, 26 July 2012 (UTC)

What's JSTOR? Thanks ツ Jenova20 19:59, 26 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)

• Thanks for the heads up! I've commented there. Dennis Brown - 2¢ © (WER) 14:47, 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 Misplaced Pages 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)

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>]</b></small>

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

Editor retention logo

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

--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 Misplaced Pages: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'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)

is this one on the list thingy ?

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