The myth of "Power Users" at Wikipedia

[Randy from Boise]

The myth of "Power Users" at Wikipedia

One of my pet peeves is the way that the WMF bureaucracy conceptualizes Wikipedia participants. They see the world as a potential drone army for them to manipulate into editing Wikipedia through "social networking" devices (such as their failed "Rate This Article" initiative) and artificially-sweetened raspberry-flavored software solutions (Media Viewer, Flow, Visual Editor).

There are billions of people in the world, after all, and golly they should all be editing "The Encyclopedia Anyone Can Edit" because, ummmm, it's an encyclopedia anyone can edit after all. It's just a matter of the Kumbaya San Francisco Friendly Spacers making it happen with good vibrations and their software programming brilliance! (Hurrah!!! Hurrrah!!! Hurrah!!!)

Of course this assumes that the community of volunteers that actually built the encyclopedia and governing apparatus behind the encyclopedia, are nothing but the Most Highly Perfected editing drones created by their Bay Area masters — who hold all the cards and call all the shots.

This is a matter of fundamental importance.

I was thinking during the Mediaviewer/Superprotection fiasco that it had finally sunk in with the WMF circle jerkers that the Wikipedia Volunteer Community was indeed a real entity, to be dealt with on the basis of partnership. No such luck. Get a load of the following slide from a presentation at the WMF Sept. 25 Mobil Metrics meeting held at Club Headquarters in San Francisco:



( linkhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php? ... df&page=12[/link] )

Once again we see WMF accepting as axiomatic the dangerous and erroneous model of linear "editor engagement" — casual visitors via Google become regular readers straight to the site; who become casual editors; who become more regular editors; who VOILA!!! become very active editors!

"It's all a matter of getting more readers, you see, and the rest will take care of itself, thanks to us."

This is not the way that Wikipedia's core volunteer cadre is recruited and built and it is especially not the way that Wikipedia's need for core content writers in specialized subjects needs to be recruited and built. We need specialists and experts, not an influx of random "crowdsourcers" tricked into making edits 1 through 6 with magic software beans...

Hey WMF: WAKE UP!!!

RfB

[Randy from Boise]

See also: Their machinations at their Feb. 2014 Product Retreat:

linkviewtopic.php?f=15&t=2590#p112729[/link]

"Community Processes --------> Rabbit Hole"

"Bye Bye Wikitext"

RfB

[Montoya]

The transcript of that meeting is quite telling as well:

linkhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Met ... ember_2014[/link]

[slide 12]

User engagement spectrum: Who are we supporting?
Lila: this is about web / app?
(Maryana:)
This is about everything
Dan: some app uses come via web - in Google search results, it asks you if you want to open via app. People told us they do actually use that, set it as default
Lila: this overview is very helpful
(Maryana:)
scale is sort of about amount of knowledge users have about WP (none / a lot)
Dan: a lot of these people e.g. don't have user pages, might not regard themselves as Wikipedians if you asked them
Lila: it would be really important to quantify this
Howie: we have data about that
(Maryana:)

edit: added link

[Randy from Boise]

We remember Lila's official company slogan: "We Work for the Users."

I asked: "Which users — the readers or the volunteers?"

No reply.

It's pretty clear to me now. There is no way for the volunteer community to collaborate with the bureaucratic clique — these are careerists with their own agenda.

RfB

[Konveyor Belt]

So the only requirement for a power user is to make 100 edits a month? There are semi-retired editors who still manage that amount. The WMF has once again misrepresented its community.

[Randy from Boise]

So the only requirement for a power user is to make 100 edits a month? There are semi-retired editors who still manage that amount. The WMF has once again misrepresented its community.

I think the notion of "Very Active Editors" (100 edits/month) is very useful.

Unless one uses high levels of automation that takes a day or two of hard work each month, or sustained small efforts over the course of the whole month.

It is also a metric that has been carefully charted for years:

linkhttp://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWik ... sGt100.htm[/link]

That's not a bad means to estimate the size of the WP volunteer community — certainly the best metric extant.

Here's the thing: WMF hasn't made any effort whatsoever to understand who these people are and how they are subdivided. There is some limited academic research on this topic ( linkviewtopic.php?f=8&t=5374&p=112893#p112617[/link] ) but it is in one ear and out the other with WMF, if they bother to read it at all. There is much more they could and should be doing in terms of building databases of Very Active Editors and surveying their needs.

RfB

[Johnny Au]

As a "power editor" myself, I believe that there should be another category called "Wikipediholic" who makes at least 500 edits a month (there should be extremely few of these people).

Many of the "New Editors" consist of those who are vandals or spammers (they often get blocked before they reach the status of "casual editor").

[Kelly Martin]

I think the notion of "Very Active Editors" (100 edits/month) is very useful.

Unless one uses high levels of automation that takes a day or two of hard work each month, or sustained small efforts over the course of the whole month.

100 edits/month is a significant effort for someone who is primarily a content author. It is a modest effort for someone who is primarily a copyeditor. It is a trivial effort for a vandalism patroller, semi-automated spellchecker, or other "gnomic" sort of editor. The focus on edit count as a measure of participation and commitment clearly rewards the technical gnomes over writers and copyeditors.

[Vigilant]

I think the notion of "Very Active Editors" (100 edits/month) is very useful.

Unless one uses high levels of automation that takes a day or two of hard work each month, or sustained small efforts over the course of the whole month.

100 edits/month is a significant effort for someone who is primarily a content author. It is a modest effort for someone who is primarily a copyeditor. It is a trivial effort for a vandalism patroller, semi-automated spellchecker, or other "gnomic" sort of editor. The focus on edit count as a measure of participation and commitment clearly rewards the technical gnomes over writers and copyeditors.

YES! YES! YES!

People who add files/pics/articles to categories!
Never mind that categories is probably the worst possible grouping mechanism known to man for an ONLINE ENCYCLOPEDIA, while the work is marginally useful, there's no way in hell that this is as valuable as direct 100 article space contributions.

This is like giving the janitor equal control with coaches over who uses the gym.

Coach: "OK! Time to the championship game! Everybody ready? Murray you've left side D, Johnson ..."
Janitor: "Whoa! Whoa! Whoa! I don't want you guys having a game in here."
Coach and Players: "What?"
Janitor: "You're gonna make a mess! No game tonight! I have spoken!"
Principal: "I guess it's no game tonight..."
Coach: "But that's insane! This is a state championship! The kids have worked hard all year..."
Janitor: "Nope"
Principal: "Consensus."
Coach: "You know what? Fuck you guys! I'm done!"
Players: "Awwww..."

[EricBarbour]

The transcript of that meeting is quite telling as well:
linkhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/WMF_Met ... ember_2014[/link]

Welcome to our mess.

Lila: it would be really important to quantify this
Howie: we have data about that

Okay, let's see it. (Already knowing they won't display anything "embarrassing".)

Here's the thing: WMF hasn't made any effort whatsoever to understand who these people are and how they are subdivided. There is some limited academic research on this topic ( link ) but it is in one ear and out the other with WMF, if they bother to read it at all. There is much more they could and should be doing in terms of building databases of Very Active Editors and surveying their needs.

You've just written a great blog post. And if you'd like to expand on it, I've got a collection of about 80 academic papers about Wikipedia -- very damn few of which discuss this in any detail. If nothing else, it's great for showing that academic people have been doing a terrible job of studying Wikipedia from any aspect. But still, you might find a couple of useful cites in it.

[Johnny Au]

I think the notion of "Very Active Editors" (100 edits/month) is very useful.

Unless one uses high levels of automation that takes a day or two of hard work each month, or sustained small efforts over the course of the whole month.

100 edits/month is a significant effort for someone who is primarily a content author. It is a modest effort for someone who is primarily a copyeditor. It is a trivial effort for a vandalism patroller, semi-automated spellchecker, or other "gnomic" sort of editor. The focus on edit count as a measure of participation and commitment clearly rewards the technical gnomes over writers and copyeditors.

I average at least 300 edits a month. How? By being a WikiGnome of course. I rarely add content.

[Kumioko]

I think the notion of "Very Active Editors" (100 edits/month) is very useful.

Unless one uses high levels of automation that takes a day or two of hard work each month, or sustained small efforts over the course of the whole month.

100 edits/month is a significant effort for someone who is primarily a content author. It is a modest effort for someone who is primarily a copyeditor. It is a trivial effort for a vandalism patroller, semi-automated spellchecker, or other "gnomic" sort of editor. The focus on edit count as a measure of participation and commitment clearly rewards the technical gnomes over writers and copyeditors.

I average at least 300 edits a month. How? By being a WikiGnome of course. I rarely add content.

Lol, I did between 10, 000 and 30, 000 edits per month for several years. Even in slow months I did over 3000 edits. But Wikipedia isn't about the editing anymore, its about the bureacracy. How many friends you can make and cliques you can infiltrate to push your agenda. Very few editors anymore even care about the projects mission, or goal, which is to build an encyclopedia. All they care about is that their perception of religion, politics, sports, etc. is properly "owned" and anyone who disagrees with their opinions is topic banned or blocked from the site.

So the WMF definition of power user is really about as worthless as most of their other observations. Why? Because the majority of people at the WMF do not edit so they have no idea what the community wants or the project needs. They are career opportunists looking to make sure that their checks continue to come in and they continue to spend the donation money.

[EricBarbour]

Lol, I did between 10, 000 and 30, 000 edits per month for several years. Even in slow months I did over 3000 edits

Only 6.5% of which were actual article edits....

[Poetlister]

If "power editor" means anything, it ought to mean someone who can use all the flash technical aspects of the software, such as writing bots or at least is able to construct a sortable table. I expect that even many regular editors couldn't do that. Of course, this is not to be confused with "poweful editor".

[Johnny Au]

I try to make at least 70% of my edits each month be on an article.

[Randy from Boise]

I try to make at least 70% of my edits each month be on an article.

I shoot for 2/3.

RfB

[thekohser]

I try to make at least 70% of my edits each month be on an article.

I shoot for 2/3.

RfB

Each of you are doing better than BulgaRV (T-C-L), who appears to touch articles in about 50% of his edits.

[Kelly Martin]

100% of my edits for the past year have been to articles. Past two years, in fact.

Really, it's not hard to accomplish that at all.

[Konveyor Belt]

24.3%. Am I a bad person?

Article 579 24.3%
Talk 203 8.5%
User 213 8.9%
User talk 503 21.1%
Wikipedia 752 31.6%
Wikipedia talk 117 4.9%
Template 9 0.4%
Template talk 4 0.2%
Help 1 0%
Category 1 0%
Portal 1 0%

But since I CSD pages a lot, my edits to User and User talk are inflated by the edits I make to a log in my userspace and the user's talk page who created the article. And the edits I make to an article to place the tag are usually deleted.

The people at RfA are not that forgiving.

[Randy from Boise]

Percentage of edits to the primary namespaces (Mainpage, Project, File) versus the talk pages of those namespaces seems to me to be important. That would be an interesting metric for weeding out the Facebookers, I think...

WMF should be building a 10,000 or so name database of active registered users and actively charting their statistics and grouping them with like accounts. Then they should be surveyed, surveyed, surveyed.

Wikipedia is a volunteer-driven organization with an incompetent central authority that doesn't have the first fucking clue who its volunteers actually are.

RfB

[Poetlister]

100% of my edits for the past year have been to articles. Past two years, in fact.

Really, it's not hard to accomplish that at all.

It's dead easy if you set out to do that, but don't you ever feel the need to use the article talk pages?

[Peter Damian]

One of my pet peeves is the way that the WMF bureaucracy conceptualizes Wikipedia participants. They see the world as a potential drone army for them to manipulate into editing Wikipedia through "social networking" devices (such as their failed "Rate This Article" initiative) and artificially-sweetened raspberry-flavored software solutions (Media Viewer, Flow, Visual Editor).
RfB

Does anyone remember this?



There was an original untampered one, but I have lost it.

[Peter Damian]

The original


Found it, and the WR thread