[Wiki Loves Monuments] 'evaluation'

Hu hubert.laska at gmx.at
Mon May 4 19:14:56 UTC 2015


 > WMF is trying to push and pull on editor retention, but that is pulling
 > a dead horse as long as the environment is not adapted to those the 
people.
 >

I fully agree, Romain

Greetings from Vienna, Heinz

Am 04.05.2015 um 18:51 schrieb Romaine Wiki:
> Hello Lodewijk & all,
>
> Yes we disagree on that, but that is fine.
> My personal goal of organising Wiki Loves Monuments is to get the
> cultural heritage monuments on Wikipedia with photo, and that is the
> actual thing that happens for sure with Wiki Loves Monuments. If other
> people want to set other goals, I am fine with that.
>
> But, I have analysed for myself what is to me a realistic goal, and I do
> only come out on having more cultural heritage monuments on Wikipedia
> with photos. As side effect it is fine to have more people on board, but
> not as main goal. Let me explain why.
>
> For me personally Wikimedia/Wikipedia is a relative nice environment as
> I well in easily learning myself new things and to pick up new stuff.
> For people who have the capability to explore the Wikimedia environment
> themselves, it works fine. For those people it is easy to continue after
> a contest with taking pictures and writing articles, because they have
> the capability to find those other things to do. But I think most people
> who have that as strong personal characteristic have already tried this
> and are still active or found it not interesting enough. The software
> and environment is excellent for those people to work with, for early
> adopters and pioneers. But those kind of people are almost sold out now.
> But still the focus is still pointed towards this kind of people.
>
> Over the past 5 years I have helped many people with editing Wikipedia
> and with uploading pictures to Commons, and I have spoke with a lot of
> people why they stopped editing Wikipedia. Almost none of those people
> have the capacity of exploring the environment on their own. Besides the
> (hostile) mentality and atmosphere on Wikipedia, the environment of
> Wikipedia/Wikimedia does not full-fill basic needs those people have.
> There is not a really friendly environment, there is no productive
> environment that gives sufficient stimulation, and it is not a really
> social environment the large majority needs. With the VisualEditor there
> is an easy way to edit Wikipedia for people who are not comfortably with
> wikisyntax, but it still lacks a social environment in what those people
> are comfortable.
>
> As a figure of speech: The early adopters like the assignment to build a
> house in the middle of the desert, the large majority wants that house
> already been built and wants to do the decoration only or wants a much
> more comfortable living.
>
> There is after a contest like Wiki Loves Monuments no environment at all
> that fits to handle all the participants and give guidance so that they
> can continue to be active. Those users that participated in a contest
> fall in a black hole afterwards. This is with all the contests
> volunteers from Wikimedia organised. But not just with contests, this is
> also the core problem why edit-a-thons and workshops in editing
> Wikipedia gives so little result in editor retention: it is going fine
> during the edit-a-thon and the workshop when they have a personal coach
> next to them to ask questions. But after the edit-a-thon or workshop,
> those users are on their own. Wikipedia is aiming on creating content,
> with all kinds of pages that try to support that. What Wikipedia misses
> is a social environment that fits with these people and gives them
> stimulation.
>
> With past edit-a-thons I noticed also another strong need with the
> participants. After the editing they all are interested to continue
> doing this together as group. Then you can say that they can use a
> project page on Wikipedia, but that does not work for them at all. It
> appears way too primitive for them.
>
> WMF is trying to push and pull on editor retention, but that is pulling
> a dead horse as long as the environment is not adapted to those the people.
>
> And please understand me well: I consider it as the most important to
> get more people on board, but with the current environment it seems to
> me to be unrealistic to have a big influence on this.
>
> And yes, I think it is great all the organising teams have done so much
> work. All the organisers have achieved something really great. <- This
> is actually something I miss as well in this "evaluation".
>
> Romaine
>
>
>
> 2015-05-02 14:02 GMT+02:00 Lodewijk <lodewijk at effeietsanders.org
> <mailto:lodewijk at effeietsanders.org>>:
>
>     I think this is a clear demonstration that WLM is a diverse project
>     :) You identify that having a picture for each monument is the main
>     goal, but as you know I disagree with that: for me the competition
>     is and will always be a tool to get more people on board, to get
>     people aware of the fact they can contribute, and help them over the
>     threshold. For many local competitions, it is more important however
>     to use WLM as a community building tool. I have seen great outcomes
>     in this field in the Middle East, where communities work together in
>     real life for one of their first main projects, and after that
>     continue to organize other activities as well.
>
>     Best,
>     Lodewijk
>
>     On Sat, May 2, 2015 at 1:54 PM, Romaine Wiki <romaine.wiki at gmail.com
>     <mailto:romaine.wiki at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>         The focus of the evaluation is very much biased.
>
>         The focus is too much on money, it gives me a horrible feeling,
>         the community/participants are not a factory plant in what every
>         employee needs to work a minimum number of hours. The goal of
>         Wiki Loves Monuments is to get all monuments with a good picture
>         on Wikipedia, not just of the most popular or easy monuments.
>         The first time a contest as such is organised the low hanging
>         fruits are done first, but they forget to mention that getting
>         the low hanging fruits is not the core goal of Wiki Loves
>         Monuments. The goal of Wiki Loves Monuments is to get a photo of
>         every monument. The more monuments get a picture, it becomes
>         much harder to ge a picture of the other monuments. It are too
>         much easy thoughts without thinking it through. It is failing in
>         describing the actual situation and misses totally what Wiki
>         Loves Monuments is about.
>
>         WMF has set some objectives for itself, and now the evaluate
>         those objectives/goals, even while Wiki Loves Monuments has a
>         different focus.
>
>         To me the evaluation is a signal that WMF is too far away from
>         the actual community.
>
>         Romaine
>
>
>         2015-05-02 13:26 GMT+02:00 Lodewijk <lodewijk at effeietsanders.org
>         <mailto:lodewijk at effeietsanders.org>>:
>
>             Hi all,
>
>             it seems that the WMF evaluation department has once again
>             put together an evaluation of Wiki Loves Monuments. Out of
>             curiosity, were any of the organizers involved in this? A
>             quick glance suggests some factual errors, and again a big
>             focus on assuming WLM is a consistent project, that is
>             similar in each country (while in reality it is a diverse
>             collection of projects, tailored to the needs of each
>             country, by its community) and with a focus towards number
>             crunching.
>
>             Statements that begin with 'the average Wiki Loves Monuments
>             implementation/contest' make my eyes bleed... Did anyone
>             make a more thorough analysis of the report?
>
>             Best,
>             Lodewijk
>
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>
>
>
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>
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>
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