Submissions/Discussion Room/1

Round table discussions involve the audience!

The Discussion Room is a space for open and facilitated discussions at Wikimania that are actually about the content projects.

Discussion topics

• Session 1a, 09.30 - 10.10: "What do new users need to be successful?"
• Session 1b, 10.15 - 11.00: "Welcoming and retaining new users."

Author of the submission

Lodewijk Gelauff & Iolanda Pensa (facilitators)

Track

• WikiCulture & Community

Length of session

90 minutes.

Discussion Program Session 1

• https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/discussionroom1a - etherpad 1a
• https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/discussionroom1b - etherpad 1b

Abstract

This is one of the discussion sessions in the overarching Discussion Room concept. It will focus on the following two discussions:

• Session 1a, 09.30 - 10.10: "What do new users need to be successful?"
• Session 1b, 10.15 - 11.00: "Welcoming and retaining new users."

General approach

Each discussion targets specifically online Wikimedia projects, it lasts 40 minutes and it starts with a short 5 minutes introduction.
To set the tone of our discussions, we have three rules:

1. Focus on YOU. We are interested in discussing and triggering individual action, things people can personally do and change to improve our Wikimedia projects. We trust the discussion can be much more interesting if we do not focus on what others should do ("the others", Wikimedia chapters and Wikimedia Foundation).
2. Be constructive and polite. Disagreements animate discussions and they can allow us to unfold all issues related to a topic. Let's avoid personal attacks, let's consider that we have different backgrounds and let's aim at making everybody comfortable in sharing their legitimate point of view.
3. Be short and on topic. Let's create space for everyone to express his/her opinion.

1a: What do new users need to be successful?

Objective

Identify the top-4 biggest bottle necks for new people to be successful as an editor that we can directly influence as a community.

Approach

The discussion will focus on identifying the major issues that stop new users from becoming successful as an editor. We will start with making an inventory of some bottle necks, and then focus on discussing which are the biggest problems.

1b: Welcoming and retaining new users

Objectives

Identify & document 30 ideas

Identify & document the 5 'lowest hanging fruit' among them

Get commitments from participants to help welcome and retain new users in the coming month.

Approach

The discussion will primarily focus on brainstorming. After that, we will try to agree on what would be the lowest hanging fruit among them - things we could do (from the community perspective) the easiest.

Saturday discussions

All sessions are on Saturday (day 2).

• Session 1a, 09.30 - 10.10: "What do new users need to be successful?"
• Session 1b, 10.15 - 11.00: "Welcoming and retaining new users."

Morning break

• Session 2a, 11.30 - 12.10: "Wikimedia Commons - Needs and wishes for the perfect Wikimedia media database."
• Session 2b, 12.15 - 13.00: "Will we still need categories in times of Wikidata?"

Lunch break

• Session 3a, 14.30 - 15.10: "What topics are relevant/notable?"
• Session 3b, 15:15 - 16.00: "Exchange of deletion/review processes and best practices."

Afternoon break

• Session 4a, 16.30 - 17.10: "Admins: editors with extra buttons or community leaders."
• Session 4b, 17:15 - 18.00: "Mass article creation - who should write Wikipedia?"

Interested attendees

If you are interested in attending this this specific session (one or both discussions), please sign with your username below. This will help reviewers to decide which sessions are of high interest. Sign with a hash and four tildes. (# ~~~~).

1. Andycyca (talk) 22:21, 31 July 2014 (UTC)
2. Add your username here.