baychi: wikimania redux
DESCRIPTION
For those who couldn’t attend Wikimania, the annual international Wikimedia conference, this panel of top contributors to the wiki community reviews some of the latest developments, lessons learned, and what to expect from Wikimedia in the future. Adina Levin of SocialText leads a panel that includes Wikimedia executives and other noted wiki experts as they share highlights from Wikimania 2009. The panelists discuss a project that would allow Wikimedia to be more usable for contributers, opportunities to help Wikimedia move forward, and the latest wiki trends.Yahoo!'s Micah Alpern describes the culture of Wikimania. Sue Gardner, Wikimedia's executive director, covers the foundations priorities and projects. Ed Chi of PARC summarizes his much-discussed research on the slowing growth of Wikipedia, with data, models, and possible explanations. Naoko Komura shows off the achievements of Wikimedia's Usability Project and describes its future plans. Jack Herrick of wikiHow describes his company's efforts to increase contributions to wikis.The broad wiki community is strong, productive, and inventive, and our panelists are a few of the people who help make it a success. Whether you use wikis for reference, contribute to wikis at work, use other kinds of user-contributed media, or participate in open-source communities, you'll learn a lot from these experts.TRANSCRIPT
BayCHI 10.13.09 Redux
Micah Alpern - Overview of Wikimania
Sue Gardner & Erik Möller- Wikimedia Foundation
Ed Chi - Slowing growth of Wikipedia
Naoko Komura - Wikipedia Usability
Jack Herick - Lessons from WikiHow
Taken by Beatrice Murch (blmurch)
Flavor of the conferenceFlavor of the conference
Big trendsBig trends::
Confronting slowing growthConfronting slowing growth
Maintain QualityMaintain Quality
HowHow//why why ((demographic shiftsdemographic shifts))
What to do about it UsabilityWhat to do about it Usability,, PolicyPolicy,, EngagementEngagement
Erik Zachte, Wikipedia's stats guru/czar/master.
Maintain QualityMaintain Quality Confront Slowing Confront Slowing GrowthGrowth
Maintain QualityMaintain Quality Confront Slowing Confront Slowing GrowthGrowth
Strategic PlanningStrategic Planning
Usability InitiativeUsability Initiative
DataData,, modelsmodels, & , & explanationexplanation
WikiTrustWikiTrust
Flagged RevisionsFlagged Revisions
Answers Community ModerationsAnswers Community Moderations
Photo of Richard Stallman Wikimedia keynote by mat-
## of active contributors plateauingof active contributors plateauing
Photo of Jimmy Wales by blmurchPhoto of Jimmy Wales by blmurch
httphttp://://usabilityusability..wikimediawikimedia..orgorg
Jennifer Riggs presenting on volunteer lifecycle at the Red CrosJennifer Riggs presenting on volunteer lifecycle at the Red Crosss
Flagged RevisionsFlagged Revisions
articles at high risk of articles at high risk of vandalismvandalism
egeg.. biographies of living biographies of living peoplepeople
Traditional Moderation Traditional Moderation FailedFailed
As Answers grew traditional As Answers grew traditional moderation methods failed to moderation methods failed to scale with thescale with the communitycommunity..Manual customer care systems:
Had slow response timesHad slow response times
Treated all abuse reports the sameTreated all abuse reports the same
Had high false positive and false negative ratesHad high false positive and false negative rates
Were high cost and scaled up with trafficWere high cost and scaled up with traffic
Answers Community Answers Community ModerationModerationDeployed a newDeployed a newCommunity ModerationCommunity Moderationsystemsystem
Empowered trusted Answers users to help moderate Empowered trusted Answers users to help moderate content by allowing their report abuse actions to content by allowing their report abuse actions to automatically delete contentautomatically delete content..
System didnSystem didn’’t reveal reputation scores to userst reveal reputation scores to users,,
Encouraged them to report accurately so they could gain Encouraged them to report accurately so they could gain more community influencemore community influence..
Illustration by Illustration by Bryce GlassBryce Glass
To address these challengesTo address these challenges::
WikiTrustWikiTrustLuca de Alfaro, Ian Pye, and Bo Adler from UC Santa Cruz
Panel of current and former Arbicon committeePanel of current and former Arbicon committee
Simultaneous SpanishSimultaneous Spanish//English English TranslationTranslation
photo of Eugene Kim from blmurch
Strategic planning
httphttp://://metameta..wikimediawikimedia..orgorg//wikiwiki//StrategicStrategic__planningplanning__20092009
Agenda for the eveningAgenda for the eveningIntroIntro
Micah Alpern Micah Alpern -- Overview of WikimaniaOverview of Wikimania
Sue Gardner Sue Gardner && Erik MErik Mööllerller-- Wikimedia FoundationWikimedia Foundation
Ed Chi Ed Chi -- Slowing growth of Wikipedia Slowing growth of Wikipedia
Naoko Komura Naoko Komura -- Wikipedia UsabilityWikipedia Usability
Jack Herick Jack Herick -- Lessons from WikiHow Lessons from WikiHow
Wikimedia Foundation Wikimedia Foundation SpeakersSpeakers
Sue GardnerSue Gardner --Executive DirectorExecutive Director
Erik MErik Mööllerller -- Deputy DirectorDeputy Director
Wikimania ReduxSue Gardner and Erik Möller
Wikimedia Foundationhttp://strategy.wikimedia.org/
Slowing Growth of Wikipedia: Implications for the Future Bongwon Suh, Gregorio Convertino, Ed H. Chi, Peter Pirolli
Augmented Social Cognition Area Palo Alto Research Center
1. What’re the Global Activity level patterns?
2. What’re activity patterns by Editor Classes?
3. Are the Population Sizes stable? Analysis of Population by Editor Class
Number of Articles (Log Scale)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Modelling_Wikipedia’s_growth
Monthly Edits
Active Editors
Monthly Edits
*In thousands Monthly Active Editors
1. What’re the Global Activity level patterns?
2. What’re activity patterns by Editor Classes?
3. Are the Population Sizes stable? Analysis of Population by Editor Class
Monthly Edits by Editor Class (in thousands)
Undoing the effects of one or more edits – The page being restored to a version
that existed sometime previously. – Reverting may also refer to any action
that reverses the actions of other editors. – Fighting vandalism – This analysis exclude vandalism to
model “resistance”
Monthly Ratio of Reverted Edits
Increased resistance from the Wikipedia community to activities by occasional editors
Disparity of treatment of edits – Occasional editors have been
reverted in a higher rate
Photo: http://lianza2009.wordpress.com/
1. What’re the Global Activity level patterns?
2. What’re activity patterns by Editor Classes?
3. Are the Population Sizes stable? Analysis of Population by Editor Class
Monthly Active Editors
1. What’re the Global Activity level patterns? – No longer following an exponential growth curve. – Logistic growth is now a better explanation
2. What’re activity patterns by Editor Classes? – Middle class decreasing their proportion of edits – Different editor classes experience differing
resistances 3. Are the Population Sizes stable?
– Middle class a smaller portion of the pyramid
Exponential growth model – Growth rate depends on the current N
Preferential Attachment: Edits beget edits – The more number of previous edits, the more number of new
edits – r, growth rate of the population €
dNdt
= r *N
Ecological population growth model – r, growth rate of the population – K, carrying capacity (due to resource limitation)
€
dNdt
= rN(1− NK)
Follows a logistic growth curve
New Article
Carrying Capacity as a function of time.
Biological system – Competition increases as
population hit the limits of the ecology
– Advantage go to members of the population that have competitive dominance over others
Analogy – Limited opportunities to make
novel contributions – Increased patterns of conflict and
dominance
Ecological growth model – r, growth rate of the population – K, carrying capacity (due to resource
limitation) r-Strategist
– Growth or exploitation – Less-crowded niches / produce many
offspring
K-Strategist – Conservation – Strong competitors in crowded niches /
invest more heavily in fewer offspring €
dNdt
= rN(1− NK)
[Gunderson & Holling 2001]
People-ware – Growing resistance to new content – Coordination cost and bureaucracy
Knowledge-ware – Availability of easy topics to write about
Tool-ware – Quality of tools used by editors and admins
[email protected] http://asc-parc.blogspot.com
Augmented Social Cognition Area Palo Alto Research Center
Monthly Ratio of Reverted Edits
Inception: 2001. Wikipedia now has over 13 million articles in 266 languages.
Source: Wikimedia Commons, Author: bigbug 21
Remove Barriers
Make it intuitive
More power to the people!
Promote Public Participation
Usability Study
MEET GRACE
Medical StudentEveryday Wikipedia
Reader"
"It’s really hard to see what I changed."
MEET CLAUDIA
Database Administrator Has made < 5 Wikipedia edits
“[I feel lost]. Did someone clean it
up on me?”
MEET SAURAB
Software DeveloperReads Wikipedia More than
Once a Week
“It’s much easier to add my content to a
blog.”
MEET SHAUN
StudentEveryday Wikipedia
Reader
“I’m just gonna keep trying here.”
MEET SEAMUS
\Business Student +Controller of a Non-ProfitWeekly Wikipedia Reader
“I’m not a programmer. I know the letters P-H-P.”
Cleaning
Navigation
Tools
Simplification
Differentiation
Streamlining
Help
Messaging
Style Guide
User Profiling
Release Nicknames
Current Interface
Açai - Navigation
Açai - Toolbar
Açai - Toolbar
Açai - Search Result
77% Beta Retention Rate
Babaco Design Concept
Citron
* Content folding
* Side-by-side preview
* Syntax highlighting
Author:
Luc Viatour
www.lucnix.be
Usability Wikiusability.wikimedia.org
Naoko KomuraEmail: [email protected]: Shuhari
wikiHow Presentation BayCHI October 13, 2009
Email: [email protected] Twitter: @JackHerrick
Identi.ca: @Jack
- What is wikiHow
- Why people contribute
- Re-design
What is wikiHow?
• wikiHow is collaboration to build the world's largest, highest quality, how-to manual
Big Bang Theory on CBS
Growth of Unique Visitors
0
2,500,000
5,000,000
7,500,000
10,000,000
12,500,000
15,000,000
17,500,000
20,000,000
17 MM Unique Visitors per Month
62,000+ articles
0
10000
20000
30000
40000
50000
60000
70000
Jan-
05
Mar
-05
May
-05
Jul-0
5 Se
p-05
N
ov-0
5 Ja
n-06
M
ar-0
6 M
ay-0
6 Ju
l-06
Sep-
06
Nov
-06
Jan-
07
Mar
-07
May
-07
Jul-0
7 Se
p-07
N
ov-0
7 Ja
n-08
M
ar-0
8 M
ay-0
8 Ju
l-08
Sep-
08
Nov
-08
Jan-
09
Mar
-09
May
-09
Jul-0
9 Se
p-09
4,500+ Editors with over 10 edits
0
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
Jan-
05
Mar
-05
May
-05
Jul-0
5 Se
p-05
N
ov-0
5 Ja
n-06
M
ar-0
6 M
ay-0
6 Ju
l-06
Sep-
06
Nov
-06
Jan-
07
Mar
-07
May
-07
Jul-0
7 Se
p-07
N
ov-0
7 Ja
n-08
M
ar-0
8 M
ay-0
8 Ju
l-08
Sep-
08
Nov
-08
Jan-
09
Mar
-09
May
-09
Jul-0
9 Se
p-09
- What is wikiHow
- Why people contribute
- Redesign
Why do people contribute to wikiHow?
• I think it is fun/entertaining (77%) • I find it personally rewarding (75%) • I love to give back (66%) • I enjoy collaborating with others (60%)
Simplified reasons for contributing
#1 Fun
#2 Greater Meaning
#3 Collaboration
Making editing easier means more edits
Advanced editor Guided editor
Edit abandonment is the failure to have fun
Simplified reasons for contributing
#1 Fun
#2 Greater Meaning
#3 Collaboration
Noble missions provide greater meaning • Wikipedia : An encyclopedia for every
person on the planet in their own language.
• wikiHow : Practical instructions to help people solve the problems of everyday life.
Extending greater meaning: Books to Africa
Greater meaning detractor: Advertising Partial solution: Opt out ads
Going carbon neutral: A cautionary tale
• wikiHow went carbon neutral a few years ago. Temporarily were the most popular carbon neutral website.
• Going carbon neutral added meaning for many in community • But detracted meaning for others....
Simplified reasons for contributing
#1 Fun
#2 Greater Meaning
#3 Collaboration
Classes on Compassionate Communication • Classes on Compassionate Communication
(aka Non-Violent Communication) o Taught by live instructors on phone
and online
o Free to wikiHow editors
o $250 to non-editors
• Goal to encourage civil, enjoyable collaboration.
Classes on writing skills
• ���Offered free classes on general writing skills taught by live instructors from Gotham Writers Workshop.
Simplified reasons for contributing
#1 Fun
#2 Greater Meaning
#3 Collaboration
- What is wikiHow
- Why people contribute
- Redesign
Keep in touch
• wikiHow User:JackHerrick
• email: [email protected]
• Identi.ca : @Jack
• Twitter: @JackHerrick