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The Wikipedia Library/Processes/Blogs

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The blog post is one of our most useful tools for communicating the place of the Wikipedia Library—both within the Wikimedia ecosystem and within the larger community of publishers and libraries. Blog posts allow us to provide a steady stream of communications that profile the activity of the Wikipedia Library and help communicate why, how and to what effect the Wikipedia Library is pursuing partners, tools, and activities.

For most of our blogging activities, we focus on user stories, the stories of real, experienced editors in the Wikipedia community who benefited from the project. In doing so we get the opportunity to profile the amazing work that happens everyday throughout the community by our editors.

User stories allow us an opportunity to bring editor's stories out from behind the anonymity of their work and into the focus of the Wikimedia reading community, as well as a much wider audience. We amplify this impact through social media tweets and Facebook posts, along with cross-posting on our partners' communications platforms. This helps communicate to both potential editors and potential partners how and why they should be involved with The Wikipedia Library.

Examples of Wikipedia Library Blog Posts

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Before you get started in asking for a blog post from editors to create a user story, make sure to read the following examples to get a sense of the genre of writing that we are creating in these blog posts.

Step 1: Discovering a User Story

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The first step in developing a blog post is discovering a story. Since the vast majority of our editor interactions at the Wikipedia Library are related to getting experienced Wikipedia editors access to our partner donations, we try to highlight those interactions. Discovering a story from a particular user or partnership strengthens the overall impact of our partnerships. To select a user story, we usually start with one the following approaches:

  1. Identify a priority partnership: Sometimes we will want to profile different partnerships that have proved either very valuable for the community (eg. JSTOR) or provide a feature that communicates something important for the Wikimedia Community (eg. Newspapers.com's 'Clippings' function). Whenever working with a particular partnership, try to find users whose work provides a new insight into how the content can be used for the Wikimedia community.
  2. Identify an active user of a partnership: Remember, our goal is to help partners, members of the community and potential editors envision how library resources can be used to create new content. Users are the crux of this experience, so identifying users that actively use sources is really important.
  3. Identify an important element of a partnership for the community: Sometimes partnerships provide access to materials in a unique or useful way. For example, we found the open-access clippings option by Newspapers.com to be well aligned with the Wikipedia community's values, thus we chose to highlight that function with a couple of blog posts.

Step 2: Acquiring a User Story

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Once you have an element of a partnership identified for the blog topic, its time to solicit someone actively using the resource to reflect on their experience.

Selecting a user Here are some ways to discover individual users:

  • Investigate Special:LinkSearch for new links to our partner's resource. Pay attention to links clustered on certain pages: those are pages where the resource has been a central part of a user's research. Check who in the history actively added those references; they might be a good candidate for highlighting the partnership.
  • Look through the accepted users, and see whose recent edit history includes article research. It might be useful to have navigational popups on when doing this, otherwise you might find yourself clicking through many hundreds of pages.
  • Check out the talkpage or feedback pages for the partnership: users who express enthusiasm or actively talk about the importance of the partnership will likely be ready to communicate their experience with the source.
  • Contact the volunteer coordinator: ask them who they have had good interactions with. Often, they will have a pulse on who has been using the accounts, and who has provided good feedback to other users.

Contacting the user One of the best ways to contact a user is through a direct message on-wiki. They may not be looking for emails, or respond to a direct user email, so letting them know that you would like to correspond with them is one of the best ways to get their attention. Moreover, we want to limit the use of emails that we have direct access to via the partnership signups in order to ensure that users understand how their emails will be used. Instead, ask them to begin corresponding with you via Special:EmailUser for example "Please send me an email via Special:EmailUser/Astinson (WMF) if you would be interested in starting a blog post". Asking for such an action allows you to grab their attention directly on-wiki while also giving them an opportunity to opt-in/opt-out of corresponding via email or participating in a blog post.

Prompting a good blog When asking for a good blog post, try to offer the user focused questions that will hone them in onto writing about the Wikipedia Library and the partnership, but also broad enough that they have the opportunity to write their own experience instead of a prescriptive. Generally, I (User:Astinson (WMF)) prompt users by leaving several questions on the Google Doc on which they are writing, focusing on topics related to how they will use the materials.

Example questions:

  • Why did you apply for access to [PARTNER]? What kinds of opportunities did it provide for you?
  • How are you using the [PARTNER] access to benefit your contributions to the Wikipedia community? Are there particular projects or articles that you have been working on?
  • Does your situation as a researcher for a particular language Wikipedia or a particular topical WikiProject benefit most from the access?
  • Why do you think [Partner] is an important tool for Wikipedia editors? Why is the Wikipedia Library useful for Wikipedia editors?

Step 3: Refining a User Story

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Refining a User Story is probably one of the most labor-intensive parts of the blog creation process, because it requires the blog coordinator to make sure that the rhetorical effect of the blog post works to further our mission – that of connecting Wikipedians with Library resources, and furthering the engagement of the Wikimedia community with knowledge controllers – while still accurately reflecting the experience of the user. Like in other forms of writing, revision might require a number of different changes, both in the user's content and in the content framing the story, to make sure that it accurately reflects our communications goals while effectively appealing to the readers of the blog post. Wikipedians tend to be good writers in the genre of encyclopedic recording; however, to make more public-communications oriented writing effective, we may have to be more involved in shaping the blog posts.

Adding a frame One of the important parts of the user story blog posts is adding a frame to introduce the user story, explaining why it is relevant to the reader. For examples of the frames we have used in the past, see the introductory parts of the example blog posts. Information to make sure to include in the lead:

  • What the Wikipedia Library does, defining the Wikipedia Library's work and linking back to previous blog posts about the Wikipedia Library
  • How the user story from the Wikipedia Library represents the work of volunteers or the movement more generally
  • Which partner we are highlighting, and what they donated

Revising

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When writing our blog posts, we need to make sure that we are revising the stories we tell to the different audiences that the Wikipedia Library is trying to reach. Here are a few different concerns, questions, and writing tips that should strengthen the overall effect of the blog post:

Audience All writing is entirely dependent on the audience. When developing blog posts, it's important to revise the User Stories and the Framing narrative, to make sure that these reflect the interests and concerns of our different reading audiences. By appealing effectively to all these audiences, we strengthen the impact of the blog post.

  • On the WMF Blog
    • Experienced Wikipedians – One of the most likely to be critical of our work, but also one of the most important audiences, who will benefit the most from it. Make sure to frame as much of the blog post within core community values like en:WP:5, en:WP:V and the movement's affiliation with open source and open knowledge.
      • Revision Questions: Does anything in the blog post challenge a core value within the community? Will an empathetic community member be able to recognize their own work in the work of the volunteer?
    • Key Wikimedia Movement Decision Makers and WMF Staff – The blog will be most visible to decision makers within the community that help influence the long term movement strategy. Showing metrics, or signs of success to these audience members.
      • Revision Questions: Does the blog post provide enough evidence to help decision makers recognize the value of the user's experience?
    • Interested Wikimedia and Open Source/Access/Knowledge supporters – This is the broadest audience drawn by the WMF blog, and will include individuals largely sympathetic with the mission of the community.
      • Revision Questions: Does the blog post help sympathetic readers gain new knowledge of the community so that they can better work with and support it?
  • On the Partner's Blog
    • The Partner's customers – one of the most important audiences for our blog posts, when they go on a partner's blog. Why? Because as active users and followers of a partner's service/platform/holdings they could be motivated to become Wikipedia contributors: they likely share values such as a) an interest in research, b) interests in exploring and documenting those explorations and c) a desire to share that knowledge with others. If blog posts make Wikipedia contributions
      • Revision Question: Do we provide enough reasons for other people to want to participate in Wikipedia? Do we frame the Wikipedia users' contributions within the kinds of motivations that new users might recognize the value of Wikipedia contribution?
    • The Partner themselves – Keeping our partners happy is a really important part of the Wikipedia Library: without a partner's buy-in, we don't receive more accounts to share with Wikipedians. Before submitting a blog post to the Partner's blog, make sure you consult with coordinators about the Partner's motivation for participation.
      • Revision Question: Do we communicate the partnership in positive light? (If we don't think we will be able to, you shouldn't be highlighting this partnership: the partnership either is not benefiting the community significantly, or you have chosen the wrong user story to highlight.)
      • Revision Question:Do we highlight how the partner's resource can be used on Wikipedia, to reflect the best possible use-cases within the Wikipedia community? Remember, we don't to whitewash the use of the partner's materials, but at the same time, we want to highlight opportunities that positively effect the partner and in turn encourage Wikipedians to understand what opportunities the materials offer.
  • Other unexpected readers –
    • Because the blogs are widely distributed with social media and the WMF Blog circuit, we need to make sure that the blog posts aren't pushing buttons or falsely representing the work of any particular groups: we don't want to create unintended backlash. That being said: social media succeeds most when something provides both acceptable "normal information" alongside more controversial or exciting "new" information. Try to create a balance of the two types of information that might engage new people.

Rhetorical appeals Rhetorical appeals are another important element of communicating with your audience. Each method of appeal, furthers the persuasiveness of the content communicated in the blog post, allowing it to resonate more thoroughly with our audience, and in turn facilitating transformation of casual familiarity into investment in our effort.

    • Logos – Logos constitute the reasoning or logic of the blog post. Items like organization and clarity of focus, help insure that the reader can follow the transitions between ideas within the post.
      • Revision Questions:
        • Does the blog post have a unifying theme or purpose? Will an unfamiliar audience understand why the introduction and user experience are being communicated?
        • Does the user clearly articulate why they choose to engage in Wikipedia activities? Does that articulation of the motivations connect with the partnerships' materials? Does the blog highlight that complementary interest?
        • Does the order and organization of the parts develop explanations of ideas that might be new to the audiences? Do we provide enough definitions of experience-specific concepts (i.e. Wikipedia community values and the nature of the partners' materials)?
    • Ethos – Ethos is the demonstration of authority both of the author and the evidence provided by the author
      • Revision Questions:
        • Does the Wikipedian represent the partner's material as credible and useful? Do we provide sufficient examples to illustrate the authority of the Wikipedia contributor's assessments?
        • Does the blog provide sufficient establishment of the users own credibility? Do they link back to their work or discuss how their own experiences create authority in talking about Wikipedia? Do they explain why we should be listening to their experience as opposed to the experience of other contributors?
    • Pathos – Pathos is the emotional appeal of the work. Appealing to the audiences values, and providing sufficiently personal stories helps humanize the blog, and create a better emotional appeal.
      • Revision Questions:
        • Does the author maintain a sufficiently positive tone in their treatment of the Wikipedia Library, the Partner and Wikipedia to maintain reader interest? Will the reader walk away feeling good about the outcomes of the Wikipedia Libraries work, even if there are weaknesses that are highlighted as well?
        • Do the examples provide by the author appear relatable to other audiences? Will they recognize their values in the blog post? If not, do we explain sufficiently the connection between audience values and our own?
        • Does the Wikipedia contributor explain how their own values influence the choices they have made?
        • Does the description of experiences sufficiently appeal to the audiences identified for the blog? Does the information avoid sore subjects for the audience or provide sufficient reasoning for these sore subjects to be discussed reasonably?
    • Kairos – Kairos describes the timing of an argument, ensuring that the information is delivered at an appropriate time.
      • Revision Questions:
        • Does the blog talk about sufficiently recent work to warrant being covered in a blog? Does the blog give a sense of when this work is happening? Does the author talk about multiple articles or pieces of work that are within a recent time frame?
  • Language/Style – Because of the wide range of writing experience for Wikipedians, especially if their main proficiency is in languages other than English, it's important to do a thorough copyedit, and get at least 2–3 other TWL coordinators to clean up the blog post. The WMF communications team also does a good copy/edit style pass as well: so if its in a fairly good position, they can make final changes to that type of clarity. We recommend passing all the prose through the "Paramedic Method" (see it laid out on the OWL @ Purdue).
    • Revision Questions: Does the blog post use professional language? Do they avoid regionally specific colloquial phrases that another audience might not understand? Does the blog post avoid relying to heavily on wordy language, such as passive voice and prepositional chains?

Step 4: Publishing a User Story

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These are the steps for getting a blog post published:

  1. Reviewing the blog post. Get the revised version of the blog post reviewed by some of the fellow coordinators, including at least one of User:Ocaasi (WMF), User:Astinson (WMF), or User:Nikkimaria.
  2. Publishing the blog. With the Wikipedia Library blog posts, we try to use the work put into a blog to reach multiple audiences; so, you may have to create multiple slightly modified versions of the final draft to make sure that they are published. Generally, blogs will be published in two venues: a) the partner's blog, per the process laid out by the partner and b) the WMF via the process described at Wikimedia_Blog.
  3. Share the blog. Make sure to promote the blog post through Twitter @WikiLibrary by including the Twitter handle in a tweet. User:Ocaasi (WMF) will retweet it.

Other thoughts, concerns, etc for framing a blog post

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Multilingual blogs Because the Wikipedia Library is catering to a global audience, we need to make sure that we develop multi-lingual blog posts when appropriate. The easiest way to develop this blogs is to approach a user of the Wikipedia Library who has expressed their investment and involvement in a non-English project. These users will likely be able to compose in English or another language and then translate the blog post into the other language as appropriate. For an example of such a blog post, see the JStor blog post about Persian User 4nn1l2:

and the draft on Meta:

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