Talk:New Readers

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Capital R

Why the capital R? Nemo 13:53, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

Hey Nemo_bis, sorry for the delay. We're using a capital R because "New Readers" is the name of the project (as opposed to just "new readers", the phrase). Hopefully that makes sense? Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 20:13, 4 April 2016 (UTC)

True, it's appropriate to signal this is a proper name as the meaning of the phrase has no relationship with the meaning of the words which compose it. However, it would be even better to use words which will not be ambiguous. I understood the thing only after reading it's about "emerging communities"; you may want to use as name something that conveys the characteristics of the thing, like Emerging communities research or New user constituencies/catchments. Nemo 05:58, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Kbrown (WMF) (on behalf of Katherine (WMF)) posted a response on the annual plan clarifying the difference between "Emerging Communities" and "New Readers." I hope that this clarifies. AGomez (WMF) (talk) 21:55, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

Plural

FYI there is an instance of "New Reader" without plural in Wikimedia_Foundation_Annual_Plan/2016-2017/revised#Goal 1: Raise Wikimedia awareness among new readers. Intended? Nemo 06:26, 28 May 2016 (UTC)

Hey Nemo_bis - looks like this was a typo. Fixed now. Joe Sutherland (WMF) (talk) 22:00, 1 June 2016 (UTC)

New Readers turning into New Editors

Abbey, did you ask any of these users whether they have considered editing a page? I'm thinking about the crisis of trust when the reader realizes that "anyone can edit" means that a political outfit could edit. Do they also see the other side, namely that they could edit, or their kids' schoolteacher, or anyone else? Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 10:05, 26 August 2016 (UTC)

Hey Sherry, I pinged Abbey to follow up more thoroughly, but to give a quick (belated) response. The awareness of Wikipedia as a brand at all is so low, let alone the model for content creation, that we didn't see a lot of people who had the knowledge to consider editing before we interviewed them. Once the model was explained, including moderation and bots and all the ways editors keep the content accurate, my impression is that people were generally on board with believing the content was trustworthy (Abbey please confirm). We've got a long way to go to get from people not knowing the brand at all to being editors, hopefully we're taking steps in that direction. AGomez (WMF) (talk) 20:52, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Hello! Thanks for asking! Anne, well said. From what we observed, that lack of trust that appears because anyone can edit, comes very early in the trajectory of a person's understanding the wiki content model, and in their thinking about contributing content. New Readers research was focused on how people learn (or find information they need) broadly. Though, we did learn a lot about awareness, and how people begin to understand wikipedia, we didn't talk with enough editors to start to see patterns like we did for readers and potential readers.

Here is a hypotheses we could explore: If people are on a particular mission, have a passion, that Wikipedia can be used to share that passion, or move to move it forward, they are motivated to learn the content model and think about both the benefits and draw backs of anyone being able to edit. If there is no motivation, or the motivation is low, to create content in Wiki, there is little motivation to learn the content model, and people may just stop at learning that anyone can edit.

Perhaps, motivation needs to be provided or shared to propel people over the learning curve of understanding the content model and contributing content (there are both social and technical things to learn, of course) if people don't come to the wiki with it.

Here are a few examples to demonstrate where my thinking is coming from. Some people might not go further in their understanding of the content model, and their concern about trust remains if there is no motivation to do so. Others, might move forward and test it. For example two of the participants in Mexico, created profile pages for themselves (with friends), as an experiment, not caring that the articles were deleted. They were curious and having fun, and not understanding that it was causing work for others, and doing some damage to the encyclopedia. We also met people who had a passion for something and contributed content and editing work to that end. The second set of people were certainly able to understand the value of themselves and anyone being able to edit. For example, one woman in India I met, creates EN:wiki articles (and adds to existing articles) particularly about ancient Indian temples. She visits the temples, finding very old documentation, and people who can help her find the documentation to build the references for her articles. She is on a mission to properly document the temples. There is her motivation to learn about the content model. The other people making profiles, might be less motivated by a mission or a passion they can see using Wikipedia for, and are more in discovery mode about the encyclopedia's content model and how to navigate it. We can design research to investigate this (or other) hypothesis if needed, and we have the resources. --ARipstra (WMF) (talk) 20:09, 20 September 2016 (UTC)

In contrast to what was said above, there are few, if any bots running on small projects and "moderation" usually means that someone manually checks Special:RecentChanges. If you know how to read and write in Fulah or Igbo, and if you have enough internet skills to can send an e-mail message from a web browser, then you are capable of improving those Wikipedias. ff: has just 193 articles right now: there is a lot of room for improvement. But if you put the same person in the well-developed and rule-bound English Wikipedia, I expect that you would see a lot more failure. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:48, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Hi Sherry, just wanted to call your attention to the New Editor Experiences research that Abbey, Neil, and other folks from Editing are undertaking this quarter. AGomez (WMF) (talk) 20:55, 24 April 2017 (UTC)

Research reports on Meta

Just relaying here what I told Abbey verbally, it's too late/cumbersome to move everything now, but these research project reports should be created in the Research namespace going forward.--DarTar (talk) 23:37, 7 September 2016 (UTC)

Hey DarTar can you be more specific about which report you're talking about? This page is a hub for all the New Readers related work, of which research has been a huge part. Happy to do what we need to do to make sure it's discoverable, but need more information. AGomez (WMF) (talk) 20:45, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I think that he's interpreting this work as being primarily a research project, rather than a project that happens to include some research. If that's the case, then the page title should be Research:New Readers. Moving translated pages is a bit of a pain (the rest are quick and easy), but it could be done if you thought it was appropriate. Whatamidoing (WMF) (talk) 20:50, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Meaning of Strategic Partnership and Readership ?

What is Strategic Partnership? Is Readership actually “Reader” Team? I am going to translate Reading/Reader Team and thought it relates to the subject here. —Omotecho (talk) 21:10, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi Omotecho! Good question, and apologies for my slow response. I've just updated the documentation on that section of the translation too. Yes, Readership should be "Readers" at this point. Strategic Partnership is the Global Reach team. AGomez (WMF) (talk) 19:26, 8 December 2017 (UTC)

@AGomez (WMF): Thank you for the update, and wish I can be of help to translate your new text; imagined translation into ja might help somebody with Brazilian ties to finish in Portuguese, as we have solid population of Japanese Brazilian living in Japan. Best, —Omotecho (talk) 03:15, 9 December 2017 (UTC)

Inspire Campaign about new readers and WSC2017

Hi. I am too busy with WSC to write anything about that in the current Inspire campaign, but one day we should discuss about how Wiki Science Competition did help to increase awareness. The academia is interconnected, and that really helped. We had uploaders-newbies from countries who were informed by friends working in other countries, for example. The results in India were amazing, and we got partial support from the marine science community which resulted in a good coverage with user expert in underwater and ocean photography in areas such as the Philippines. My email campaign produced some effect in Kenya. I will send soon a press release to the national finalists tailored to local newspapers at least in India. our main jury includes three jurors from "Asian giants" who also did their part for local promotion. I wish we had an easier support from WMF instead of knocking two or three times before getting a sitenotice last minute here and there but.. still we do have now some interesting feedback. Maybe we should discuss more when this is over, after March.--Alexmar983 (talk) 10:16, 21 January 2018 (UTC)

Kiwix in 2019 in India and South Africa

Hi, this is a suggestion for Angela's project. Something that could be developed and tested is a Kiwix app for the KaiOS feature-phone operating system. This is relatively new yet has already overtaken iOS (Apple) in India. The killer feature is that it brings WiFi capability to low-end phones for the first time (where it was most needed all along!). Also these phones have longer battery life than smart phones.

I have communicated with the Kiwix team and while they are aware of it, and have done a feasibility study (concluding that it is feasible), they aren't currently devoting resources to it.

Living in South Africa where the first KaiOS phones are about to be released, I strongly believe this will bring a whole new demographic onto the internet and therefore potentially to Wikipedia. Because WiFi access brings the possibility of downloading while at a hotspot, for use later, Kiwix is perfect. I propose that a budget be found to make this happen!Michaelgraaf (talk) 15:57, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Hey Michaelgraaf (talk), sorry for the slow response here. We are looking into KaiOS. Thanks! AGomez (WMF) (talk) 17:35, 3 April 2019 (UTC)