Talk focusing on how to make volunteer support resources of Wikimedia available to more people in the Wikimedia movement, taking a closer look at the practices of WMDE and the WMF with a bit of number crunching. 30min, Wikimania 2015 in Mexico City

1. Own
Community
Contact: rebecca.cotton@owncommunity.com
Engineering Volunteering
What can Wikimedia do better?

2. Own
Community
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Sustainable Programs
What programs work & scale?

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Community
Contact: rebecca.cotton@owncommunity.com
Things that are easy to
organize & use existing
infrastructure

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Community
Contact: rebecca.cotton@owncommunity.com
Meetups
CC BY-SA 3.0 de,
Godewind
CC BY-SA 2.0 allenthepostman
nice people
+
nice place
+
food
=
success

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Community
Contact: rebecca.cotton@owncommunity.com
Example: Editathon / Open Editing
● Personal Laptops from Community
● Existing Internet Connection
● Pre-Arranged Materials/Topic
(from institution or personal)
● small group of people dedicated to
keep it alive

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Community
Contact: rebecca.cotton@owncommunity.com
Example: Editathon / Open Editing
Idea to scale further:
Don’t only make it about the
on-site editing, but also have
online participants

7. Own
Community
Contact: rebecca.cotton@owncommunity.com
Example: Wiki loves X / Contests
The “easy” & scalable part:
● Personal Cameras & Laptops
● Pre-arranged Lists / Topics
● Prizes that do not need
shipping: Wiki badges, etc.
● Team dedicated to seeing it
through

8. Own
Community
Contact: rebecca.cotton@owncommunity.com
Example: Wiki loves X / Contests
The “hard(er)” part:
● finding a Jury
● finding attractive
shippable prizes
● shipping the prizes

9. Own
Community
Contact: rebecca.cotton@owncommunity.com
Example: Wiki loves X / Contests
The “hard(er)” part:
● finding a Jury
● finding attractive
shippable prizes
● shipping the prizes
Chapters & WM Staff
should have the
infrastructure to help out:
● connections to help
make for a renowned
jury
● easy access to
money/logistics for
prizes
● logistics/connections
easily to ship prizes

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Community
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… more complex Projects
● Photoflights
● Big Conferences
● …
… all need specialized knowledge and often only come
about with help from Wikimedia

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Community
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Things in Common to create Success
infrastructure is available

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Community
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How can we make
infrastructure of Wikimedia
more available?

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Community
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Communicating where the
Community is

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Community
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What everybody on the web knows:
more clicks to the goal
=
higher dropoff rate

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Community
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What can this mean for the
reach of WM Grant programs?

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Community
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Looking at Pageviews of Grantpages
pageviews
from the last
90 days

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Community
Contact: rebecca.cotton@owncommunity.com
Normalized Pageviews
pageviews were normalized by
pageviews of the meetup page*
EN:WP&DE:WP
does not take into consideration:
● differences in staff resources
● Meta being for more than EN:
WP audience
-------
* meetup page activity as
measurement for activity of the
community outside of editing

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Community
Contact: rebecca.cotton@owncommunity.com
What we see - Literature Peak
● WP:Library fares a LOT
better than general meta
grant page concerning reach
● WP:LitStip fares better than
the other DE Grants
concerning reach

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Community
Contact: rebecca.cotton@owncommunity.com
What do they have in common?
BOTH move or have moved outside of WM-communication channels
● all information was available on the X:WP so the user it found on the
“home” wiki
● where also advertised on Talk pages in more organic ways
○ e.g. putting a note on the users talk page on the Wiki about
receiving the grant
○ proactively advertising with community members whenever it
seems they might need this - preferably publicly, so others can
see the note as well

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Community
Contact: rebecca.cotton@owncommunity.com
What we see - comparing DE&Meta
only normalizes for EN:WP
meetup activity while being
targeted at all languages

21. Own
Community
Contact: rebecca.cotton@owncommunity.com
What we see - comparing DE&Meta
only normalizes for EN:WP
meetup activity while being
targeted at all languages
took into account possible
meetup activity for other
language WPs (15k
EN+2.5k others)

22. Own
Community
Contact: rebecca.cotton@owncommunity.com
Making resources available
● Having resources available on-wiki makes them
easier to find
● Communicating outside of official channels can
help spread the news for people who are not
involved (yet) with Wikimedia
=
the resources can reach more volunteers

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Community
Contact: rebecca.cotton@owncommunity.com
use what is easy to organize
&
existing infrastructure
What can Wikimedia Staff do?

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Community
Contact: rebecca.cotton@owncommunity.com
In Conclusion
Guerilla Marketing methods
from Wikimedia grant teams
makes resources more
available to volunteers!