2019:Community Growth/Testing tools for Growth: Two case studies with five Wikipedia communities

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Community Growth/Testing tools for Growth: Two case studies with five Wikipedia communities

Description

Wikipedia communities are continually innovating ways to attract and retain new editors, but it is hard to know which of these many efforts are most effective. CivilServant works collaboratively with online communities to test tools and innovations aimed at achieving the goals community members care about most. This talk gives a brief introduction to Citizen Behavioral Science, a collaborative process for designing experiments with community consent, and presents two study designs developed with Wikipedians; a project with French Wikipedia to test the effectiveness of their Welcome Message and a project with Arabic, German, Persian and Polish Wikipedias that tests the effects of receiving Thanks on newcomer retention. The results of these studies will not be complete by Wikimania (one study will already be fielded and the other at the cusp of being fielded), but we hope that presenting the study designs will give participants ideas about how they can test innovations in their communities.

Relationship to the theme

The organisers of the community growth space believe that the space will address the following Sustainable Development Goals:

• 9 Industry, innovation and infrastructure
• 10 Reduced inequalities
• 11 Sustainable cities and communities
• 16 Peace, justice and strong institutions
• 17 Partnerships for the goals.

This session will address the conference theme — Wikimedia, Free Knowledge and the Sustainable Development Goals — in the following manner:

Relationship to the space

The organisers of the space and the community have identified a number of topics they wish to address in this space. Please explain how your proposal its into these topic areas.

As a reminder, the proposed topics are listed at 2019:Community Growth

This session will address the topics of the Growth space in the following manner:

Although Citizen Behavioral Science can be used to forward any goal a community may have, this talk focuses on studies that explicitly test the effectiveness of tools for retaining newcomers.

Session outcomes

At the end of the session, the following will have been achieved:

We hope that participants will come away with an understanding of how experimental studies can help them identify which of their innovations are successful at supporting their Growth goals. Participants should also leave with an understanding of how the process of collaborative design and community consent can build a strong research design that respects the integrity of the community.

Session leader(s)

The session will be lead by one or more CivilServant staff, including:

• Nathan Matias
• Julia Kamin
• Max Klein

Session type

Each Space at Wikimania 2019 will have specific format requests. The program design prioritises submissions which are future-oriented and directly engage the audience. The format of this submission is a:

• Teaching session
• Conference presentation

Requirements

The session will work best with these conditions:

• Room:

Projector + screen. We are flexible with room size or seating.

• Audience:

Audience members need have no particular skills or background. We are happy to present to an audience of one to one hundred.

• Recording:

We have no restrictions on the use of our content and presentation.

• Time requested:

A twenty minute presentation w/ 5-10 minute Q&A would be appropriate, but we are again flexible.

Relationship with the organisers of the space

The organisers of the community growth space wish to provide any necessary support to presenters and participants that they may need and also wish to have an active role in shaping the content of the space to maximise the benefit of all attendees. Please let us know if you would appreciate any help, and if you consent to constructive suggestions from the organiser team that would allow the largest amount of people to share and benefit from each other's contributions.

• I would be interested in receiving help in shaping my submission: YES
  • In particular, I would need the following type of help or advice:
• I consent to the organisers of the space contacting me to discuss alternative ways to present my knowledge (for example, merging two proposals into a common presentation, a panel debate instead of a lightning talk, etc.), or ways to modify and improve my proposal (for example by ensuring a gender diversity on panels) : YES
• If my proposal is not selected for a presentation, I would be interested in presenting my proposal in the form of a poster in the Community Growth space: NO
• I consent to my proposal being proposed to organisers of other spaces if it would be a good cross-over topic or if it fits better into the other space's scope: YES